The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 309 - Indifference

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: So I'm experiencing and feeling a lot of this phenomenon / feeling of late, and I've observed it in some of my clients. And I'm trying to work out if it's a good thing, if it's a bad thing, if it's neither of those things. And so, I thought, "Who better to help me unpack this than Jen Waldman?"

Jen: Can't wait to hear.

Pete: And so, the feeling is or the phenomenon is indifference.

Jen: Huh, I could go either way on this one. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: I realized as I was framing that, that I was feeling indifferent about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing as well. I'm glad you caught that. So, indifference. Indifference. I have had a few conversations in the last few weeks where this, I guess it's an emotion popped up in me and in my clients. And so, maybe I'll just share a couple. One is, long-term listeners will know Tracey and I moved to Brisbane eighteen months ago, because she got a great job up here. We moved from Melbourne. It's a complete change of lifestyle. Brisbane is a far warmer climate than Melbourne. Very different cities, but also really similar in so many aspects. Anyway, the thing we get asked all the time by people, our friends still in Melbourne and our new friends in Brisbane, are like, "Will you be moving back to Melbourne? Are you staying in Brisbane forever? Like, is this it for now?" And I have this total feeling of indifference about either option. That, I try and communicate to people, "Oh, I mean, I love where we are. I love living in Brisbane. I could easily see myself staying here." Equally, if someone said, "Tomorrow, you have to move back to Melbourne," I'd be like, "Cool, I'm moving back to Melbourne. I've got a bunch of friends there. I love living in Melbourne." Like, I feel so totally okay with either option that I guess it's a feeling of indifference. Then I've heard a few clients, particularly, mention this to me, where they might have a bunch of job offers on the table or like someone's approached them about a new opportunity and they're trying to wrestle with, "Is it better? Is it worse? Is it more pay? Is it less pay? Is it more exciting? Is it less exciting?" And then, they kind of get to this point of like shrugging their shoulders and like, "I feel indifferent about either option. I like either option. I see downsides of either option. So, what do I do?" And so, I'm here noodling, thinking, and talking to others about this feeling, and I'm like, "Is it a bad thing? Is it a common thing? Is it an okay thing? Is it a good thing?" And so, I can think of so many other contexts where this feeling is relevant, but I just wanted to share that with you first. Does it make sense? Do you feel indifferent about this? Do you have strong views either way?

Jen: Well, I'm sure there are other listeners out there who can relate to what I'm about to say, which is, I find my own indifference to be one of the most stressful emotions, because I'm a person who really likes to have strong opinions. And I have said this many times, I, in the Gretchen Rubin Four Tendencies framework, am such a textbook Questioner that I want to analyze something into feeling. I guess is the opposite of indifference, difference? I want to feel difference.

Pete: Yeah, passion for something or difference. Yeah.

Jen: To the point, Pete, I might have shared this before, where I will now, when I go to a restaurant, try to pick something very quickly, to practice making a decision when it doesn't really matter.

Pete: Right. That's good. Okay, so now I'm already seeing how this...ironically, I feel like this emotion can be both good and bad, and probably indifferent as well. It can be all three. Because I can totally picture myself in a restaurant feeling so indecisive / undecisive (I guess maybe indecision and indifference are somewhat related) about what to order on the menu, and it doesn't make for an enjoyable experience for me and probably for Tracey too. She's like, "Just freaking pick something. Let's order, let's eat. Like, come on." And so, I could see already how this feeling doesn't serve me. Interesting. But I could totally see ways where it does serve me.

Jen: Yeah. I'm giggling over here, because now I'm starting to like put together some scenarios where indifference actually is really helpful.

Pete: Right. Give me some.

Jen: Well, I'm in the middle of my summer coaching program, and I had a client this week share something that they're using to help themselves make decisions about projects that they will or won't audition for. And they're using these different matrixes that I've shared over the years, but then they added one that they devised, which is, "On a scale of apathy to inspiration, where does this project sit?"

Pete: Oh, wow.

Jen: And I'm like, "Oh, okay. So that's a scenario where I don't know if indifference and apathy are the same thing, but they are related somehow." Where it's like, "Oh, my indifference is helping me determine that this may not be worth my energy. There might be something else out there that I actually feel inspired by or passionate about." Where it's like, "Oh, that indifference or that apathy is like such a useful feeling, because it's pointing your compass in a different direction."

Pete: Yeah. I totally hear that. And my brain wants to challenge the notion that going down a path of, maybe not to the point of apathy, but like if I ended up going down a path of something that I felt slightly more indifferent about, less inspired about, and I might discover along that way, "Oh, there's actually a bunch here that I didn't see before, that I am actually quite inspired about." And so, do you rob yourself of that moment of discovery if you're only looking at things through the lens of inspiration? Because, I mean, I feel like most listeners would agree, inspiration is kind of fickle and can't be manufactured. And so, sometimes I feel like there's this...who said it? I'm going to have to try and find it, and put it in the Box O' Goodies. I literally have on my whiteboard that I'm looking at: "Mood follows action." And so, like inspiration being a mood follows perhaps an action that you take, like starting to write a piece of music, or starting to build a business, or starting to do a project that maybe you feel a little bit indifferent about the start, but in getting into it, you go, "Oh, wait, I'm actually quite inspired about this." So I like that framework, that rubric, and I just feel like I'm the indifferent guy today. I also see how it could be, not damaging, but like it could rob us of opportunities.

Jen: Yeah. And I guess it also depends on the context in which you're applying it. Because in this scenario, they're talking about creative projects that have been proposed to them.

Pete: Yes, right. That's a good lens.

Jen: And there are multiple choices to make, right? Some that feel like in alignment with the creative work that I love to do, versus like the creative work I'm not really that in to.

Pete: Right. That's fair. That's a good context to add. I mean, it's different to looking around the various house chores that you have and going, "Well, I don't feel inspired to do any of these, so I just won't do any of them."

Jen: Right, right, right. Well, then there's another like little sneaky indifference punchline, I guess. Which is, I have heard so many clients over the years say that when they are really passionate about a project that they're auditioning for, when they really, really want it, they can get in their own way. And, of course, it's the projects they're auditioning for that they're indifferent about that they book. Like, "I really could care less about this one. I'll just go in and, you know, like no stress. Just going to do it." And then, they're like, "Oh no, that one went really well. And the one that I'm like, I really, really want this, I got in my own way." And I've said this to you offline before, but I'll say it online now: Desperation smells.

Pete: Oh, that just speaks truth. Desperation has an odor. Yeah, it sure does. I mean, I listen to the SmartLess podcast, which is one of my favorite podcasts, with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett. And they get a guest on, and it just ends up being chaos because of the fact that there's four people, three of them are comedians and performers. And they have these examples all the time, which is what you described, where the guest will be like, "Yeah, I went along to this audition, but I just was totally uninterested. My agent sent me there. I already had booked this Broadway show or I already booked this TV show, and so I just kind of went and did it out of obligation. Didn't really care. Turns out, I booked it. Turns out, it happened to be like a super successful series that I just happened to be picked up and be part of." So in that sense, I'm like, "Oh, so the indifference of the whole thing served you in a way."

Jen: Right.

Pete: Because you...I don't know, what does that mean? You took a creative risk, or you did something that you don't really care about, or, like you said, you didn't reek of the odor of desperation.

Jen: Right. Oh, it's just so interesting. Oh, universe, you tricky little devil sometimes. Because I also hear clients say things like...and I don't know if this is related to indifference, but it just feels like tangentially, another punchline in the same vein...that once you make a decision that you're going to do something else, all these opportunities start flooding in. Where it's like, "Okay. I'm going to Costa Rica for two weeks, so I'm not going to take any auditions." And then, all of a sudden, your agent calls. You haven't heard from them in two months. And your agent's like, "Hey, we have six appointments for you next week." And you're like, "No!"

Pete: Right. "I'm going to Costa Rica!"

Jen: Right? It's funny how when your energy is specific about a certain opportunity, how things can change.

Pete: Yeah. And then, I guess the thing that I've been grappling with is when it's not specific, and is that a bad thing? Like, this is the whole point of the indifference of the question I've had to myself, is some version of, "Is something wrong with me? Like, shouldn't I feel passionate about, for the example I shared at the start, where we want to live? Like, is it a bad thing that I don't really mind if we end up in Brisbane, or if we end up in Melbourne, or if we end up somewhere completely different?" I'm so open to the possibilities of anything. Which I guess is, on one hand, a really good thing. Because as long as I have Tracey and Ollie and myself and a roof over our head, I feel like it wouldn't really matter where it is, which feels like a positive frame of mind. But I get to this point of, and in other contexts outside of where we're going to live, of like, "Oh, is it a bad thing that I don't feel super passionate or strongly in either way? Is that a muscle should I be, like you said, making decisions faster when you order to practice the muscle of deciding, as opposed to sitting in indifference?" Hmm.

Jen: And / or. Yes / and. Both / yes.

Pete: Right. Right, right. It's just, it's so ridiculous and meta. I realize that I sound so indifferent about whether this is a good thing or not. I just can't get over it. But I guess it's both.

Jen: Well, you know, sometimes I have to go to the dictionary to like really see how someone describes it. Because I started thinking just now as I'm talking about this, "Am I even talking about indifference, or am I talking about ambivalence? What am I talking about?" So, can I read the dictionary definition of indifference?

Pete: Please. Strap yourself in, listeners. This is about to be riveting.

Jen: Okay. "Indifference denotes an absence of feeling or interest." And then it goes on, but that's the gist. "Ambivalence is the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone." So there's an absence with indifference, and there's a presence of opposing ideas with ambivalence. And that, I don't know, that just helped me a little bit right now.

Pete: Do you think it means that we've been talking about ambivalence this whole time, not indifference?

Jen: I think I've been talking about them both interchangeably, and now I'm ready to separate them from each other.

Pete: Separate the two, yeah. So then, I mean, I do wonder...I feel like we've talked around this and about this. But I do wonder, is there a way to observe this feeling when it happens and look for the opportunities when it arises, but also use it as a, in certain contexts, use it as a compass, like with your client, to make decisions perhaps back the other way? Like, how do we use this as a compass or guiding force for us? "Oh, I feel this feeling of indifference. And so, what might be behind that? What might I do about that? What might I be looking for that I can't see yet?" Like I'm trying to work out, how is this helpful?

Jen: Well, for a person like me, a control freak, I could see this...I'm not indifferent or ambivalent about that word, if you might have heard my tone. I could see this being a moment of permission for me to release control about something, where I'm like, "I actually am experiencing indifference around this. I can just release it and let it be whatever it's going to be."

Pete: Oh, I like that. Yeah, II don't have to force a decision or force overthinking it to look for the passion of, "Where is the passion in it? Is it there? Why is it so indifferent?" And just let it exist. I like that.

Jen: Yeah. I feel like I can give my grip a rest.

Pete: Well, I feel as like it would save my brain a lot of cycles.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: A lot of cycles. Hello, overthinker.

Jen: Yeah, truly.

Pete: Oh gosh. I was thinking about this...trying to frame it positively for myself, I was thinking about this, I don't know if it's a myth, but this idea that we must always be feeling happy and inspired and motivated and energetic and the opposite of indifferent and apathy, and we should always be striving to feel that way. And it's just not a reality. That like, we humans experience all of the emotions for a reason. And sometimes, these emotions are indifferent. Sometimes, there is a meh. Sometimes, there is a, "I don't really care either way, so like I'm just going to let it go and see what happens." Not all the time, but I think sometimes (and I'm saying this directly to myself) trying to get rid of indifference and seeing it as a problem that needs to be solved because you're striving to feel motivated, happy, excited, finding the right...oh, that's interesting...trying to find the right answer (that's totally what I'm doing, because I like to get an A) is not always the right approach. In fact, it very rarely is probably the right approach.

Jen: Wow. I know we typically do a segment called "Pete Feels Called Out", but right now, I'm going to call this "Jen Feels Called Out". And it's interesting when you talk about being right, it's really about getting an A. And for me, I have a similar desire to be right, and it's more like I want to have fact-checked something into air-tight, hermetically-sealed truth.

Pete: Oh god, that's funny. That's so you.

Jen: Yeah. Sorry about it. I'm working on it, friends, working on it.

Pete: Well, I feel like we could go around and around with various other examples of where indifference sits. And maybe it's been helpful for our listeners to hear us thrash on some of these. Because what I hear is that sometimes, in the right context, indifference can be a really important feeling to observe, to help you make a decision or look for other possibilities that feel more exciting and feel more inspiring and that perhaps feel more creatively fulfilling. And then, other times, I think it's okay for indifference to just exist and for it to just be. And so, in my mind, the challenge becomes: How do you get clear on which one it is you're dealing with, if and when you feel this feeling?

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.