Season 67, Episode 798: Thirty Days of Thought with Friends: "Frustrated"

"You are not an evil human. You are not without intellect and education. You have everything that could make you a credit to human society. Moreover, I am acquainted with your heart and know that few are better, but you are nevertheless irritating and unbearable and I consider it most difficult to live with you. All of your good qualities become obscured by your super cleverness and are made useless to the world merely because of your rage at wanting to know everything better than others; of wanting to improve and master what you cannot command. With this you embitter the people around you, since no one wants to be improved or enlightened in such a forceful way, least of all by such an insignificant individual as you still are; no one can tolerate being reproved by you, who also still show so many weaknesses yourself, least of all in your adverse manner, which in oracular tones, proclaims this so and so, without ever supposing an objection. If you were less like you, you would only be ridiculous, but thus as you are are, you are highly annoying." - Arthur Schopenhauer's mother, Johanna, in a letter to him dated November 6, 1807.

On a very special of The Culture Matters Podcast, we are once again discussing Jay's book, Thirty Days of Thought, and, more specifically, the section titled "Frustrated".  This discussion is going to be a little different because we have invited some of our favorite frequent guests to discuss it with us.  Andrew Berman, Paul Lucido, Demetrios Stakias, Nathan Merrill, and Chris Vester are all here to dig into this section and get to the bottom of frustration.  This discussion covers some of the causes of frustration in ourselves as well as with others, communicating clearly, and making sure that you have a good foundation so that when the frustration does come (and it will), you have something solid to stand on.  This is a big conversation with some big personalities and we hope you you enjoy this episode of The Culture Matters Podcast.