Based Camp: Being Sad is a Sin and a Choice

Malcolm and Simone share their approach to maintaining a positive work-life balance as a married couple running a business together. They explain how framing mundane activities as fun helps create happy memories. Acting cheerful even when alone reinforces emotions. Avoiding compromise and aligning on shared goals prevents conflicts. Modeling happiness teaches it to kids. They disagree on meds but research to find truth. Not fearing death removes constant dread. Starting every conversation cheerfully sustains the mood. Ultimately you choose whether to view life negatively or positively.

Malcolm: [00:00:00] So we're going to do a video today on work life balance, which you can see with a kid home from school. It was pink eye. I got terrible pink eye today too. That's the one thing they don't tell you about being a parent. You're going to be sick 24 seven, right?

Simone: Octavian? I actually started a spreadsheet to track the number of days that all of us are sick.

Simone: So every time someone gets sick, I track the dates. Cause I want to see ultimately like how many days out of the year. Someone in our family is sick because I legit think that it's like quite a few days. I think it's about a quarter. A quarter?

Malcolm: I'd say it's about a quarter of the year.

Simone: Yeah it might even be more than that.

Simone: It might actually be more like a third. So we can report back on that one. But despite being sick, I would argue that we still really have a lot of fun. And that I expected that as a parent, we would be a lot more stressed out and unhappy. Because everyone talks about how like marriage is hard work and having kids is hard work.

Simone: . [00:01:00] But in the end, I think that it's actually pretty fun and seamless. But I think that a lot of that has to do with framing. So something that we do a lot with our kids when we need them to be excited about something is we play a hype game, essentially, where we will take something really mundane, like an airport shuttle bus, and we will frame it as the most fun, the most amazing thing in the world.

Simone: So let's say that we need to get through a really rough travel day with lots of transfers. We will hype up the airport shuttle at the end of that day to get to a parking lot like it is the coolest thing in the entire world.

Simone: And it works like crazy. Like we, we talk about it all day. Oh my gosh, we get to do this thing. And then we actually get to the airport shuttle bus. We're like, this is the best thing ever. And I think that one of the tricks to making a really heavy work schedule work with family, with a spouse, with whatever is playing the [00:02:00] hype game with everything.

Simone: So no matter what you're doing, you make it fun. You make it fun.

Malcolm: I the hide game with you and how much you're already doing this to yourself, whether you realize it or not.

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Malcolm: So think about like a marriage, right? People are like the day I was married to you was the happiest day of my life. And it's like, why?

Malcolm: Like you knew you were going to get married well before that day. That's not like you just found out you were going to get married that day. It's a ceremony. They're not very fun ceremonies. Yeah,

Simone: it's a pretty stressful day.

Malcolm: Yeah, you're sitting there you're likely last minute making sure you've memorized your vows so you say them right, you're trying to project a certain self image to the crowd.

Simone: Are you just trying to keep all your guests happy and deal with, all the logistical nightmares that are coming up with whatever catering people needing stuff, et cetera.

Malcolm: I think this is true of beaches, for example, right? Oh God, miserable. [00:03:00] Oh, You'll go to a beach. It's hot.

Malcolm: They're drinking alcoholic beverages in the hot sun, often reading a book that they could be reading at home, or laying down, burning themselves, giving themselves cancer. I don't know, I don't know why people still do that. That seems like it's not even like a trend anymore. But the question is why?

Malcolm: What are you getting out of doing that differentially, right? It's that society has told you that this is a fun thing to do and that is where you are getting happiness from the event. And you can change what is a fun thing to do if you create new narratives for yourself. So we can say, some people are like, Oh, that's really sad that you turn, your business trips into little mini honeymoons or family vacations or whatever, right?

Malcolm: For you and your spouse. Cause you work together. And it's like, why? We, we section life into fun and not fun time, but you can make all of life fun [00:04:00] time if you create the right story for yourself around what you're doing and the people around you are helping you continue to generate this delusion.

Malcolm: And you might be like that's not real fun. That's a delusion. Everything, this whole game, this whole life you're living, the emotions you feel they're delusion generated by the narrative society has created for you, or the pre evolved emotional responses that you have because your ancestors who had those responses had more surviving

Simone: offspring.

Simone: And I think a really influential moment for you in your life around this hype machine game. was for watching an Addams Family movie, where

Malcolm: there's this we've talked about that in another video, so I don't want to go too deep on this

Simone: concept. Yeah, but there's a scene in which Morticia is cutting the tops, the blossoms off of roses, and admiring this bouquet of thorny branches, essentially.

Simone: And it just, it's this perfect moment encapsulating how it is up to you, in your mind, to decide whether something is positive or negative, whether you [00:05:00] enjoy it or not. And you can choose to do that with everything. And honestly, we're not as good as it is. We're not as good at it as we should be.

Simone: Like I should be more like recently, for example, our son Octavian isn't with pink guy. I'll come got pink guy. I should have been like, Oh, this is a great opportunity for us to spend more time together and have a special day with Octavian. And instead of Oh no, like how are we going to handle the logistics, the calls?

Simone: Oh, how do we do this? How do we keep Octavian happy? And I think that really what was a missed opportunity every time also is if you were in a working relationship where you fail to spend time together and turn it into something really special and fun and enjoyable, that's a failure on your part.

Simone: But I think many marriages also fall apart for that same reason that when stuff happens, it doesn't matter if it's good or if it's bad. The couple or one partner chooses to view it negatively. And that can honestly happen with really good things. Like maybe a spouse gets an amazing job opportunity and they get to move into a much better house in an [00:06:00] amazing city.

Simone: That spouse is like, Oh, I don't want to leave home. This is horrible. Or you've

Malcolm: created this power imbalance, yeah, no I, I. Absolutely agree. That was in every moment. And this also really colors how we see emotions, why we see indulging in positive emotions is really negative.

Malcol