The Backwards Law: Internal Paradoxes of Human Experience

The Backwards Law explains that trying too hard for happiness, respect, and love often leads to the opposite outcome.

### The Backwards Law: The Paradox of Pursuing Happiness, Love, and Respect
* 😔 The more we try to make ourselves feel better, the more **miserable we become**.
* ❤ The desire for love can lead to **toxic behaviors** when trying to **control or force it**.
* 🤝 Respect is foundational in relationships, but **trying to make people respect you can backfire**.
* 😊 Happiness requires some degree of **struggle and growth**, not just the **absence of discomfort**.
* 💑 Love can be dangerous when **overestimated or used to justify bad behavior**.
* 🧠 Confidence, love, trust, and respect are internal states that don't respond to **traditional cause-and-effect relationships**.
* 🔄 Eastern philosophy has long understood this "**backwards law**" of internal states.
* 🐕 The metaphor of a dog chasing its own tail illustrates the **futility of trying too hard** in these domains.

(Mark clears throat) - I was trying to think
of something clever, but then I was like, That's not clever. Insert clever intro here. Listeners, pretend I said something very witty and funny. (laughs) See, that's the funny thing, Drew, is the more you try to be witty and funny, the less witty and funny you are. - Ah. - Which is the topic of
today's episode, the backwards- - I see where you're going with this. - The backwards law. See,
that was witty and funny. I did it. I fucking did it. As soon as I stopped trying, I did it. - [Presenter] Bro, do you
even podcast? Like, bro? This is The Subtle Art of
Not Giving a Fuck Podcast with your host Mark Manson. - We're gonna talk about
the backwards law today. This is a classic, a
favorite, comes from my book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck,

it's been in a number of
articles, YouTube videos. And actually, it's not my concept, like it's been around for a long, I mean, first of all, it's
like a Buddhist concept. But beyond that, Alan Watts
popularized it in the '60s. But essentially the way I
define the backwards law in The Subtle Art is I say that, The desire for a positive experience is itself a negative experience, and the acceptance of
a negative experience is itself a positive experience. And this creates this kinda
paradoxical experience that we all have quite often of the more we try to make
ourselves feel better, the more miserable we become. And conversely, the more we kind of accept the unsavory circumstances of our lives, the more we come to terms
with our shortcomings, our failings, our rejections, the more at peace we seem to be with them, and the more confident and
self-assured that we feel.

So in this episode, we wanna kinda go deep and really understand why this happens. What's the psychological explanation for why this happens? What context does the backwards law apply to, and what context does it not apply to, and essentially how we can all just stop trying so hard. So where should we start, Drew? - Okay, so in an article on the backwards law, you outlined three different relationships, three different curves, effort to reward curves. - Yes. - So let's go through those first, 'cause I think that frames this whole discussion in a really good way. - Okay. There's an old article on the site. I drew these beautiful MS paint charts, which you could still see today. - [Drew] Beautiful. (Mark laughing) - But basically there are three curves, and it's the relationship between effort and reward and like anything that we pursue in life. So the first one is kind of a linear relationship.

The more effort you put into something, the more reward you get out of it. So this tends to apply to, like, very basic menial, repetitive tasks. Like, if you spend twice as much time cleaning the kitchen, the kitchen will likely get twice as clean. Basically, anything that doesn't require a whole lot of critical thinking, creative thinking you have this very linear relationship between effort and reward. The second curve is a diminishing returns curve, which is you put in twice as much effort, you get twice as much reward maybe the first hour, but the second hour you only get 50% as much reward, and then the next hour you get 10% more reward. So basically the more time, the more effort you put into it, the less the marginal reward is on each of those extra hours. And this tends to be true with creative work, any sort of problem-solving work, anything that involves like very complicated decision making.

I think this is purely because we have just limited bandwidth. Like, if you're doing very
difficult problem-solving, you probably only have three to four hours of good problem-solving juice
in your brain on a given day. And once you use that juice up, you're kind of just spinning your tires. And then finally we
get the inverted curve, and this is where the
backwards law kicks in. And this is where effort actually becomes negatively associated with reward. And the most obvious example of this is trying to control what
other people think about you. Like, if you try to
make people respect you, it actually makes them respect you less. If you try to make people trust you, it actually makes them distrust you. If you try to appear confident, you actually appear less confident. And this is just a very weird, crazy mindfuck of a situation. And the backwards law,
it applies to the domain of internal emotional
regulation and to relationships.

And I guess we'll dive into why those two things are true, but those are generally the domains that the backwards law applies to. And I think you point out, too, that when you try to apply the principles from one of these curves in a different area, it doesn't work out. And I think like Cal Newport, who has been on the show, he really works in the kind of domain of the diminishing returns, right? Creative work, knowledge work, that kinda thing. And he points out that, but we still have this very linear curve relationship with it and we try to force in more hours to produce more work and stuff like that where it doesn't work. And we'll see that with the backwards law, too, I think, for all this. Yeah, that's a really good point, that these things don't transfer over and that's a big mistake that we tend to make. Knowledge workers tend to assume that knowledge work functions like blue collar work.

Similarly, like often what you'll see is, like, people who do, like, a lot of, I guess, spiritual work or like, they, you know, they get really into meditation and psychedelics, and they go on retreats, they make all these backwards law-like discoveries of like, Oh, the more you just let things go in life, you know, the better they get. - [Drew] Right. - And then tax season comes up, and they're like, You know what? I'm just gonna let the universe take care of it. It is like, Whoa, you know what? Like, Uncle Sam doesn't give a fuck what the universe has to say, you know? You have to turn in your taxes. So you don't wanna take something that applies in the backwards law realm and try to apply it to, you know, an Excel spreadsheet or your next creative meeting at work or whatever.

Like, you're gonna run into problems there as well. - Oh, for sure. Okay, so speaking of those, some of those backwards law realms, what are some of the examples of this? Some of the most important examples you've come across, I guess. - I think the first and probably the most in most universal experience around this is dealing with your own emotions. Like, trying to control how you feel. Like, if you try to make yourself less anxious, anybody who struggled with anxiety knows that the first rule of anxiety is the more you try to get rid of anxiety, the more anxious you start feeling because you're anxious about your anxiety, right? Like, you start, like, creating this meta-anxiety about the fact that you're anxious. And then you realize that's going on and you develop even a higher level anxiety about the fact that you're making yourself anxious about being anxious. And, like, emotions tend to like compound on themselves in this way.

It's similar, like if you struggle a lot with anger, right? And you're like, God damn it, I should stop being angry all the time. Ah, yeah, what the fuck is wrong with me? You're like, Oh, shit. I'm getting angry again. God, I'm such a loser. Why the fuck do I always get, ah, fuck, I'm doing it again. Like, you get caught in these spirals around emotion. And the only way out is to simply leave the emotion alone. It's like, Oh, I'm angry. That's okay. I'm gonna be angry now. - Right. - And then ironically, as soon as you accept that you're gonna be angry now, it starts dissipating and, you know, you start to let it go. So I think the first and most crucial place that this happens is around emotions. And I think, you know, I would say meditation

is probably the best
backwards law practice because what meditation is, is simply training you to let go and accept whatever is
happening in your experience. And I think generally,
people who meditate, the first benefit they
really start experiencing is this kind of backwards law effect of letting their emotions go, of like, Oh, if I'm just
okay with my anxiety, it loses its power over me and it doesn't control me
as much as it used to, and that's very liberating, right? So I would say that's the
first and biggest one. - Yeah, I think, you know, I
have a lot of therapist friends and they constantly tell me that this is one of the
hardest things for them to get across to clients. And it's usually one of the
biggest problems they have. And they can see it right
away when people come in. They're trying to control their emotions. They're trying to control

some relationship that they can't control, or something about the
world that they control. - Control other people's emotions. - Yeah, yeah.
(Mark laughs) And, like, their job, they're like, Half of my job or more is just trying to get them to let go. And it's really, really hard. So meditation helps, therapy helps, but it's even hard for therapists
to get people to do this, and I don't know what that is. - I think it's really
useful to understand that, you know, in my book
Everything is Fucked, I talk about the two brains. Like, for me, it was very
helpful to understand that you don't have this
unified brain in your head. You actually have multiple systems that are kinda layered
on top of each other and the emotional system
and the rational system are two completely different systems. And they can look at each
other and react to each other,

but they don't control each other, right? Like, you can be the
smartest person in the world and understand all the
intellectual reasons why you are completely safe and secure, and that there's nothing
to be worried about, but your emotional brain can still be freaking
out in the background. And there's nothing that's
gonna necessarily change that or eliminate it permanently. Like, the two brains
can influence each other, but they can't control each other. And so I think what a lot
of people struggle with is that realization that, you know, just because you know
you shouldn't be angry or you know you shouldn't be sad doesn't mean you're gonna
stop being angry or sad. Like, you don't get to decide
what you're gonna feel. You're gonna feel what you're gonna feel. There's like an animal part within us that just feels whatever it feels. And as soon as you orient yourself towards responding to that
rather than trying to control it,

you just end up being
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I don't give a fuck. What's the next one? - Freedom. You've written before that, The constant desire for more freedom ironically limits us in a number of ways. Similarly, it's by limiting ourselves by choosing and committing
to certain things in life that we truly exercise our freedom. - I think this is the one, if there's one that, like,
really confuses readers a lot, it's this one.

I get a lot of questions around this one. I was confused about this
one for a very long time too. So, yeah. And I think a lot of people, especially if your conception of freedom is optionality and autonomy, then this makes no sense to you. You know, you're like, I have
all the options in the world. How am I not free? And it's like, Well, actually it's a
different form of prison. The way I eventually understood this is that I think that there's
actually two forms of freedom and they are mutually exclusive. Okay. There is a breadth of freedom, which I would call like optionality; and then there is a
depth of free experience, which I would call a
freedom of distraction. I used to optimize my life
for a breadth of experience, a breadth of freedom. It's like I can go to
any country I wanna go. I can work or write
anything I wanna write.

I can hang out with anybody I wanna hang out with. And that's fun. Like, that optionality is very exciting, and it leads to a lot of different opportunities. But the problem is, is that if you wanna go deep on any one thing, by definition, you have to be willing to give up options. Well, for example, when I met my wife in Brazil, I was forced to make a decision of like, okay, I really like this woman. I'd like to kind of explore a relationship with her. But to do that, I have to give up the possibility of living in other places, of dating other people, of having other experiences, of going to other countries. Like, I have to stay here and spend time with her. And on the surface, that seems like a closing of freedom. Like I'm giving up freedom to spend time with this person. What I eventually discovered after spending a few years with my wife

is that there's actually this very like subtle form of freedom that happens with a depth of experience, with a depth of commitment
with something or someone. And that is essentially this: there is a emotional freedom that I experience with my wife. I am able to be purely
and completely myself with zero inhibition and with zero self-censorship around her, and she's probably the
only person in the world I feel that with. And that is only earned through spending many, many, many years together. Similarly, there is a
expertise and a knowledge base that I've developed in my career. Like, theoretically, I'd
love to be able to say like, Oh, I could go do anything. I could start any sort of
company and learn any skill. That may be true in the abstract, but the truth is, is at this point I've spent almost two decades really investing most
of my time and effort into a handful of skills,
into a single business.

into a single career and single brand. So, like, in many ways, my
options are very limited. But, in the same token, the
skill set that I've developed, the expertise that I've developed, the relationships that I've built with my audience and with
people in the industry, there's a certain degree
of freedom that I have, a creative freedom that I
have that most people don't, that has been earned and fought
for over many, many years, hammering the same thing
over and over again. So Jocko Willink has this thing
that discipline is freedom. And I remember when I first saw that, I was like, Pff, the fuck
is this guy talking about? But like, over the years, like I've realized the wisdom in that, in that the discipline that it
takes to have a healthy body gives you the freedom
to do whatever you want without pain or without limitation, right?

Like, it's the discipline of studying and reading lots of books gives
you the intellectual freedom to understand issues from
multiple perspectives. The discipline that it takes to build a career in a single
space over multiple decades gives you the freedom
to influence the world and create things in the world that there's no other way that
you ever would've been able to influence or create anything. So that's a very long-winded
explanation of depth versus breadth of freedom. And I think when you're young and things are sexy and exciting and shiny and, like, you've never,
you're kinda starting at a ground level on everything, breadth of freedom is very exciting, but I think the project through adulthood is giving up your
breadth, your optionality, and going deep on a
few things in your life and really experiencing
that depth of freedom and free experience. - Yeah, there's so many
threads to pull on there. But one thing I'll
highlight, and you said it,

but I wanna highlight 'cause
I think it's really important, is that commitment frees
you from distraction. - Yes.
- Like, that's kind of the takeaway from that. And your example of committing
to one person, for example, like, you know, I'm a
single guy right now. - [Mark] Yeah. - Now I see this, I'm
like, I'm getting older. You know, when you're younger, you're like, Yeah, I want tons of options and this and that. And now that I'm getting
older, and I'm like, I don't have time for this shit. (Mark laughs) - Yeah.
- You know, you said this before. That you have a wife, you are happy in your
relationship and everything that you don't have to worry
about this shit, you know? Or I'm like, do you know
how fucking busy I am? (Mark laughs)

Who has time for this shit? Dude, you know how I explain this to my single guy friends sometimes is, and it's funny 'cause I, like, this was a very powerful experience when I got in engaged. It happened when I proposed. It didn't happen with the wedding, it happened when I proposed. You know how like when you leave Photoshop open on your laptop in the background and just everything gets 10% slower? Yeah, okay. You know, 'cause it's just eating up RAM or whatever and like, you know, your web browser's not loading and you're like, Oh, this is so fucked. Why is everything so slow? And then like, you know, six hours later, you realize Photoshop was open in the background with like 20 images, and you close Photoshop and everything gets faster. I feel like my entire adult, like post puberty life, I had Photoshop open in the background of my brain except the Photoshop in my brain

was called Where's the hot
girl and does she like me? - Yeah, right, right. It's eating up all your RAM. - And she's eating up
tons of RAM all the time. It's like every room I walk into, it's like, Oh, where's the hot girl? Does she like me? And it's very unconscious, right? And as soon as I got engaged,
it's like that window closed and it freed up all this RAM, and just I had all this
energy and attention, like this abundance of
energy and attention to dedicate to things that
I actually give a shit about and that actually matter in my life. And it was actually a very
powerful experience to just like, and, again, come back
to the freedom thing. A freeing experience to
like walk into a room and not give a shit- - Yeah, I don't care.
Yeah, I don't give a shit. - Who's in it, if they're
single, if they're not.

if they like me, if there's
a ketchup stain on my shirt, like I don't fucking care,
it doesn't matter, right? - [Drew]: Right.
- I can focus on the thing that actually matters. - Yeah. Now I've just seen this
in other areas, though, too. Just my deep desire for
independence, you know? When you try so hard at it, you get to a point where
you're like, I'm just lost. You don't have it, you
didn't commit to a place, you didn't commit to people, you didn't commit to really anything. And you don't end up free, or you end up lost is what it is. - Yeah, in my 20s, I
very much had that life, that bon vivant lifestyle of just like, I'm just gonna go wherever I want and I'm gonna party all the time, and I'm gonna be creative
and date a bunch of people,

and like that's great, that's
great for a period of time, but now that I'm 40, I know a few people that are still in that, and they're like late 30s, early 40s, and they never left
it, and they seem lost. Like, there's an angst or
a frustration about them, of the fact that they
haven't found anything. They either haven't found something that they're able to go deep on, or they have been too scared
to go deep on something. If you never go deep on something, like that's where all
of the long-term meaning and purpose in life is. And if you never find a way to get there, then eventually you feel kinda trapped on this like dopamine treadmill of like, Oh, gotta find the new
thing, the new scene, the new party, the new
place, the new person. - New person, yeah. - And it never ends.
- Yeah.

- You just start changing 'em out one for the other endlessly until you finally find something. Next one, happiness. Which just ties in quite well to that. As, you know, my a fundamental
piece of my philosophy is that happiness requires
some degree of struggle. It requires struggle, because I think ultimately,
to feel happy with our lives, we need to feel like
we're overcoming something or we are growing in some way. And I think growth, by definition, requires surmounting some
sort of discomfort or problem. Yet I think the way most people, the instinctual way that
most people try to be happy, is by removing discomfort,
and removing struggle, and removing problems. They basically try to be
as comfortable as possible, and try to live in their default setting as much as possible. It's like a torturous facet
of human psychology that, again, it comes back to the two brains. Like, what the animal brain wants is like, No, no, no, just sit on the couch, man.

Like, just open another bag of Cheetos. Like, it's gonna be fine. - It's all pleasure-seeking, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, like, What's on Netflix, dude? Like, it's, you know, Don't
think about it too much. Whereas we have this higher
level brain inside of ourselves, this higher level system
that needs progress, it needs growth, it needs
novelty, it needs understanding. And if you're not satisfying
that part of your brain, you know, ultimately, like that's where, like, real despondence and
despair starts to set in. - Right. Yeah, that's so much of just
modern culture and society is set up against us on this one, I think. You know, it's just
convenience, pleasure sold, packaged as happiness. - Right.
- Right? And it's so easy to fall
into that right now.

And so the default is indulging in that. - [Mark] Yeah. - And I don't know,
like, if that's a product of, like, capitalism gone wild or whatever it is. I don't know, but it's something you have to deal with on a very deep level, I think, to be able to open yourself up to a lot of others of these two. - I think it's because, ultimately, it's our animal brain that makes buying decisions, you know, and marketers understand that. This is one reason why
I feel like everybody should just understand basic
marketing and sales, like 101, mainly for this, like to give yourself, to arm your defenses against the ways you're being influenced
by media and advertising. Like, any marketing course you take, the first thing they teach you is find what people are dissatisfied with and promise them that
you're gonna fix it for 'em. Promise them that they're
gonna be comfortable.

they're gonna be safe,
that life's gonna be easy, that they're gonna be happy, that they just buy this product. Like, that is basically what
marketing's function is. And this is the problem, is
that, Is that a bad thing? Well, yeah, if the product's bad, yeah, it is a bad thing, right? Like, if you're marketing cigarettes, (laughs) telling people this
is gonna make 'em happy, or if you, like, look at
beer commercials, you know, it's, yeah, that's probably
a bad use of marketing. But if the product's really good, right, like if you're selling a treadmill or if you're selling,
you know, vegetables, okay, you actually want that marketing, like you need marketing. So I've come to the conclusion that, first of all, marketing isn't
necessarily good and bad, it's a tool, and it depends
on what it's being used for.

Capitalism. You can hate on capitalism, but capitalism is simply the most accurate reflections of human desires. - [Drew] Right. - Served back to us. If we didn't wanna buy this shit, we wouldn't buy it. If we didn't crave it, they wouldn't sell it to us. Like, nobody would make a product for it, right? So yeah, there are definitely problems, and it leads to problems, but we're never going to grow as a society and develop as a society psychologically unless we're, like, forced to deal with these things. Like, if you just made a law saying like, Okay, you can never sell anything bad for anybody ever again, I don't think that's really gonna make anything better. It's probably gonna make things worse. - No, I'm not anti-capitalist. I'm pro-individual agency, I guess you could say, yeah, yeah.

But making people more aware- - I mean you could be
anti-capitalist, Drew. I'll just stop paying you. - (laughs) Yeah, right? Right? - You can just- - That would change my team very quickly if that were the case. No, yeah, I get it. I'm not anti-capitalist, but
yeah, I totally get this. - This episode is sponsored by Momentous. You might think you're
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- [Mark] Yep. - Oh, the big one, Mark. Love. - Oh. You know what's funny? Okay, so the love thing. Rolling Stone published this long piece. It's like 55 pages about P. Diddy. - Okay.
(Mark laughs) Where the hell are you going with this? (Drew and Mark laugh) - And it's interesting because

I mean, P. Diddy's in
all sorts of trouble. I mean, it turns out
that he's like just this fucking serial abuser and
madman, and extremely violent, potentially murderer, you know, who's kinda somehow flown under the radar or been enabled for decades given his, like, stature
in the music industry. But it's interesting
because, in the article, it consistently juxtaposes,
like all the quotes from him about all this stuff that's coming out. He keeps talking about love. He's like, I'm all about love. I just want love, like, Everybody knows I'm
just trying to give the love. And even his albums are like called love, like everything has love in the title. And it's interesting because
all of the instances, this also ties into the control thing, but it's like trying to
make people love him. Like, there are people in his
life that I guess he loved.

and then they didn't love him back. And then he just can't handle it. And he, like, does this heinous shit. And I think love can be dangerous because if we overestimate it and if we assume that it's this like cosmic force that, you know, destiny is bringing us together. And, you know, I love this person, so it means that we have to be together and we have to be happy together, you can start using that to justify some heinous fucking shit. Like, you can use that to rationalize absolutely terrible behavior towards the person that you supposedly love, right? And you see this all the time from P. Diddy all the way down to, like, the most deadbeat abuser anywhere you go. In their head, they're like everything they do is justified through love. They're like, Well, you know, I didn't wanna do this, but you made me do it, and I'm doing it 'cause I love you.

And it's this fucked up toxic version of. It's not even a toxic version of love, it's a toxic interpretation of love. It's a toxic, like, it's like I love this person. I can't control them, which means they can hurt me. So I'm gonna do everything I can in my power to prevent them from hurting me, and I'm gonna convince myself it's for their own good. You know, it's for the relationship or whatever. And so love is where things can get very nasty. - [Drew] Yeah. - And you can't control how people feel about you. Even if you do love each other, I've got plenty of articles, I've got a book about this, I've got videos about this, like even if two people love each other, sometimes just because two people love each other doesn't mean they're good for each other. Like, you can love somebody who is a bad fit for you.

who actually makes your life worse. And it's not even 'cause
they're a bad person, it's just a complete
incompatibility of personalities or lifestyles or worldviews. And if you overestimate love,
or if you try to control love, then it's not hard to find justifications for doing some really, really awful shit. - Right. And not only that, but you said too, you've written before that, The more we try to make
others love and accept us, the less they will, and more importantly, The less we will love
and accept ourselves. - [Mark] Yes.
- And I think that last part, you know, when you're trying
to make somebody else love you, what you're really doing, you're
trying to change yourself, which is another kind of
backwards law thing too, right? And so you have backwards
law inception here basically. (Mark laughs) But you end up not liking yourself too.

I'm sure P. Diddy, he can't like himself. I mean, I hope he doesn't. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting because I think people who tend to try to make others love them, they do it because they feel like a deep hole within themselves. There's a deep lack of love for themselves. [Drew] Definitely. But the fact that they end up forcing other people to love them, it just reinforces that internal belief that they're unlovable, right? Because like, if you're lovable, then you don't have to make people love you. If you're a lovable person who has an abundance of love in their life, you don't have to, like, fucking lock people in hotel rooms and, you know, call 'em at three o'clock in the morning and- Is that the shit he was doing? Oh, dude, it's like the tip of the iceberg.

- I haven't read this yet. Oh, God.
- It's pretty disgusting, the stuff that he was doing.
- Okay, but you have to be careful with this one too, because I think this illustrates that you have to be careful with this, with all of these, is you can't be like feigning disinterest in someone. You know, there's like that terrible dating advice where it's like, oh, act as interested or whatever, and aloof and all that. You can't be feigning disinterest for someone and, you know, expect them to actually end up, wind up loving you or liking you in any way.
- Feigning disinterest only works on people who don't see themselves as lovable, so.
- And not only that, but yeah, and you're trying hard. Like, you're still trying, right.
- Yeah, you can't fake any of this stuff.

Because, again, so, okay. If you are faking disinterest in somebody to make them like you more, all you're doing is reinforcing to yourself again that you're not allowed to be who you are because you're unlovable. - [Drew] Right. - You have to fake and pretend to be this other person 'cause that's the only way people are gonna love you, which just makes you feel less lovable, right? So it's like you are setting the terms for even if it, quote, unquote, works and the person dates you and sleeps with you and wants to be with you, you are setting the terms on which you're building a relationship is, I can't be myself. I have to pretend to be this other person or thing. And anytime you are starting a relationship off on the assumption that you are somebody who you're not, like it's not gonna end well.

Like, things are not gonna go well. - Right, well, that's a really good segue here to the next one, which is respect. - Ooh. Yes. I have come to the conclusion, after 15 years of just reading and researching and dealing with people's relationship problems, I've come to the conclusion that respect is actually more important. Love is great, but there's all sorts of dangers and traps and pitfalls that come along with love. If respect is there, it's gonna be a positive relationship no matter what. Like, respect is the fundamental basis of any positive relationship. Sure, even relationships that don't work out. Like you could date somebody for a year, never fall in love with them, but as long as you respect each other and continue to respect each other afterwards, you'll always look back and be like, That was a good relationship. I learned something, I had good experiences, I, you know, developed affection for somebody,

like there's always something
good to take from it. It's when respect is lost
that things get very toxic and abusive and manipulative. So respect is super important, but, again, it's because
it's an internal state, you can't fake it. It falls under the umbrella
of the backwards law. So the more you try to
make people respect you, it's the act of trying
to make them respect you that makes them disrespect you, right? Like if I threaten you
to make you respect me, you're just gonna respect me less, 'cause you're like,
Man, this guy just has to, like, resort to threats
to get what he wants. Like, what a piece of shit, you know? Whereas if you don't demand respect and you just act with respect, then people will naturally
wanna respect you. It's a classic case of like, give the thing that you wanna receive. And you won't get it back from
everybody, but that's fine.

The people you don't get it back from, you just don't hang out with them again. Right, right. Well, there's a lot of situations where you can't too. I had a former girlfriend who had a superior at work who was just awful and just was very angry person and was obviously demanding respect from everybody like that. And it wasn't very long until she just said out loud, she's like, I just don't respect them. And she couldn't get away from them, you know, that kind of thing, but yeah. But you do, you see that. Like especially, like, I think in work relationships, you have a boss or a manager of some sort who's just an insufferable asshole, and you're just like - I wonder what that's like. (Drew and Mark laugh) It's true, though. I mean, it's one of those dynamics, right, where like that boss probably felt this insecurity

to demand respect from everybody under him because he didn't respect himself. He didn't have confidence
in his own experiences and expertise and views, and so he, like, demanded validation from the people under him. But by demanding that validation and trying to manipulate
them into giving it, they didn't respect him, which then makes him
feel worse about himself, which then makes him demand it even more. So you get into these toxic cycles of where the bad behavior just reinforces the bad feeling behind the behavior, which then reinforces the bad behavior. It's just like a shit spiral
all the way down the toilet. - Yeah, okay, so respect
is a foundational thing for healthy relationships, like you said, but it can also be pretty fuzzy too. What does it mean to
you to respect someone? - Okay, this is a great question. - We're just throwing this around. We're throwing respect around, like what- - I've thought about this a lot

and I think it comes down to value. It's do you value the person's time, experience, and opinions? Or not even opinions. I'd say viewpoints, like perspectives, right? Right, 'cause you
could disagree with them. Yes.
And still respect them. But you can still respect them. And it doesn't even have to be like, you don't even have to admire them. Like, I think people conflate
respect with admiration. Ah, right. Like, you don't have to admire them. Respect is simply that
this person's experiences, perspectives, and time is valuable. It's worth something. It's not even if I don't want it or if I don't agree with it or if I don't really care about it. Like it is inherently
valuable in and and of itself. And it's worth listening to,
it's worth paying attention to. I think this is where the
time component comes in.

Like, respect really seems to be about the willingness to pay attention and give attention and focus to someone. Like, the fact that you're listening to them, you're hearing them, you're acknowledging what they're saying, even if you don't agree with it, even if you don't care about it, the fact that you're taking that time of your attention and focus, that is sub-communicating respect. I think ultimately that every human has a need for that to, like, feel like they're being seen, that they're worth paying attention to, and that you don't necessarily see yourself as better than them in any way. - Yeah, I think that really clarifies it because it shows you how in order to get respect, you first have to give it. - You have to give it. - Like, that all has to be there before you can receive any of that, yeah, yeah. - And that's true with all

like, the three most important
things in relationships that I always talk about are
respect, trust, and love, and that is true with all three of those. - [Drew] Yeah. - If you wanna receive respect,
you have to respect people. If you wanna receive trust,
you have to trust people. And if you wanna receive
love, you have to love people. And those things are all, like they're related to each other, but they're all slightly different. I think respect is the willingness to see each other as equals and to make space for the
other person's experiences. I think trust is the willingness to believe that they're
gonna do in the future the things that they say they're gonna do, or that the things that they
say are true about their past are you believe that they're
true about their past. And then I believe love is, it's like an empathy and a
compassion for how they feel.

Like, you don't convince people
to give you those things. You get good at giving those things, and it will naturally sort the
right people into your life. Well, okay, so, Mark, what is it about the
backwards law, though? Mark, what is it about these things, you know, confidence, love,
trust, all of these things, why does the backwards law work for those and not some of these other things? Yeah, you know, when
you're trying to optimize things outside of you, there's a very clear cause
and effect relationship. Like if I'm trying to
improve my mile time, like I can measure the mile times, and I can see the progression,
and I can test my leg strength and test my VO2, and, like, see
the progression that happens bit by bit as I get faster, if I'm just trying to
improve my confidence, there's no way to measure that.

And in fact, when you
start trying to measure it, you make it more convoluted
and more difficult. And that's because you're trying. The cause and effect are happening within the same entity, which is the mind. The fact that you are
trying to initiate a cause is moving the effect. It's like putting a carrot
in front of a donkey. Like all this stuff is like
that happiness, confidence. Like the faster you walk towards it, the faster it gets away from you. And I think understanding
that these internal states, they don't function the same way. There's this fetish that is, especially in the personal
development world. There's a little bit of a fetish of measurement optimization
hacking different things. And we like to think like the same way you can
hack your college admissions or the same way you can optimize your morning routine or
your writing sessions. Like you should be able
to hack your happiness.

and optimize your feelings of confidence. And the fact of the matter is, the simple act of trying
to hack your happiness is gonna make you feel less happy, because you're basically
telling your brain, You're not happy enough;
you should be happier, and that's a shitting
thing to feel, you know? And trying to optimize your confidence is just gonna make you more insecure that you're not optimizing effectively, which is gonna make you
feel less confident. So, you know, it's the
snake eating its own tail. I really think this is where the Eastern
philosophy really shines. They really nailed this
stuff 2,000 years ago and we're all still
benefiting from it today. So yeah, I think it really
is a separate domain. There's a different law
of physics in this domain and you have different rules apply. And it just so happens that
those rules end up being almost completely inverted
from the external world.

And I think the sooner
we can understand that and be at peace with it,
not try to control it, not try to, like, change
it or optimize it, the better off we end up being. - Yeah, you mentioned the
snake eating its own tail. You also have a good metaphor of the dog chasing its own tail where a dog realizes, you know, if it can do twice as many tricks, it can get twice as many treats. If it, you know, can look
for twice as many balls, it'll find twice as many balls. And then it realizes,
Oh, there's my tail, if I try really hard. - If I just run circles twice as fast, I'll catch twice as many tails. I was like, Nope. (laughs) - You'll never catch your tail. And that sums it up, I think, yeah. - Yeah, all right, well for a
podcast that we don't try on,

that was pretty good. (Drew and Mark laugh.) - There we go. I told you, podcasting backwards law. - Yeah, see? We just, you know, stop trying. That's the secret. All right. I don't know how to end this. - Some things just end. (Mark laughs.) (bright music.) (bright music ends.)

The Backwards Law: How to Get More by Doing Less

#1 NY Times Bestselling Author. World Champion Non-Fuck-Giver.

For all sponsorship/business inquiries please email Chad Boukzam at chad@cndentertainment.com


Mark Manson

The backwards law, as outlined by Mark Manson, explains the paradox of the desire for a positive experience leading to a negative one, and the acceptance of a negative experience leading to a positive one.

There are three key curves that illustrate the relationship between effort and reward: linear, diminishing returns, and inverted, with the inverted curve being where the backwards law comes into play, particularly in internal emotional regulation and relationships.

It's a common mistake to try to apply the principles of one curve to a different domain, such as trying to force more hours in knowledge work or applying backwards law concepts to practical matters like taxes.

The Backwards Law: The Paradox of Control and Freedom

Trying to control and suppress emotions often leads to them intensifying, while accepting them can diminish their power, as seen in anxiety and anger.

Therapists struggle to help clients understand that trying to control emotions is counterproductive, as the emotional and rational brain systems cannot directly control each other.

The constant desire for more freedom can ironically limit us, while true freedom comes from committing to and accepting certain limitations in life.

The Dichotomy of Freedom: Breadth vs Depth

The concept of freedom can be divided into two forms: breadth of freedom, which offers a wide range of options and experiences, and depth of freedom, which involves commitment and a profound level of experience.

While a breadth of freedom provides excitement and opportunities, a depth of freedom offers emotional and creative freedom that is earned through commitment and discipline.

Commitment to a person or a path in life can free one from distractions, allowing for a deeper level of freedom and experience.

The Impact of Commitment on Mental Bandwidth

Getting engaged resulted in a powerful shift of mental focus for the speaker, freeing up energy previously consumed by thoughts of pursuing romantic interests.

The lack of commitment and the pursuit of endless pleasure can lead to a sense of feeling lost and trapped in a cycle of constantly seeking the next source of happiness.

The speaker believes that true happiness requires embracing struggle and growth, contrary to the modern culture of seeking comfort and pleasure.

Marketing plays on people's dissatisfaction and desires to sell products, but its impact depends on how it's used.

Capitalism is described as a reflection of human desires, and its problems are seen as necessary for societal growth.

The podcast also touches on the concept of love, referencing P.

Diddy's public persona in contrast to his alleged abusive behavior.

The Dark Side of Love: A Toxic Interpretation

Love can be used to justify terrible behavior towards the loved one, creating a toxic interpretation of love.

Overestimating love and trying to control it can lead to justifications for awful actions.

Trying to make others love you can stem from a lack of self-love, ultimately reinforcing the belief that you are unlovable.

The Fundamental Importance of Respect in Relationships

Respect is deemed more crucial than love in fostering positive relationships, as it serves as the foundation for mutual admiration and value of each other.

The attempt to demand respect often leads to its loss, while giving attention and focus to someone is a key way of showing respect.

Ultimately, the willingness to acknowledge and value the perspectives and time of others is essential in creating a sense of worth and fostering healthy connections.

Respect, trust, and love are essential in relationships, and they are interconnected but different.

The "backwards law" applies to internal states like confidence and happiness, where the more you try to optimize or control them, the less you achieve.

This concept, rooted in Eastern philosophy, highlights the need to accept and be at peace with the inverted rules of internal domains.