How to Be an Adult

In this episode, we advocate for capital-letter Truth, Morality and Beauty in our purportedly post-modern world, and we argue that these ideals are not quaintly outdated, but necessary for society to function and for you (as an adult) to be at your happiest: Pursuing truth, morality and beauty are worthwhile goals even in modern times, and not just “Victorian” concepts. Maintaining lie...

Since the dawn of time, philosophers have grappled with how to cope with our knowledge of death, both when it happens to loved ones and when it happens to us. In this episode, we do our best to answer this age-old question, referencing both traditional wisdom and more recent thought. Bonus content: Luke demonstrates that it’s okay to cry in public, such as when you’re talking about you...

If you do adult life well enough, eventually you’ll be considered such an exemplar of adult behaviour that your boss will ask you to lead other people, or you will naturally end up being a leader by virtue of having more skill or knowledge. But promotions don’t usually come with an instruction manual, and too often, we see senior-level leaders thinking and behaving in intermediate-leve...

So many of us grew up hearing from adults that work is necessarily hard, or that money is necessarily hard to come by. Yet younger generations have exceeded their parents in many ways, and work does not need to be an exception. In this episode, we share some principles for how to find meaning and happiness in a world where most of us have to work for a living: A scarcity mindset is one where there...

For the first 18 years of your life, your parents were responsible for ensuring that you had adequate food, clothes and shelter. Once you reach adulthood, it’s you, not your parents, who hold this responsibility. But unless we’ve been show how to perform acts of self-care, and why we need to, they often elude us. In this episode, we endeavour to remedy this gap: We have a duty to care...

By the time we reach adulthood, we’re expected to be responsible for our own thoughts and emotions: we can’t just blame other people every time we’re unhappy or upset. But if you didn’t learn how to be happy and relaxed in childhood, how can you expect to be happy and relaxed in adult life, when circumstances could be more adverse? In this episode, we do our best to give yo...

Throughout this podcast, we’ve made the case (and we will continue to make the case) that living an excellent life requires us to abide by a set of principles that are universal enough that we could say they are in accordance with human nature. But why? And what happens if we don’t? In this episode, we speak about how: Having clear principles to live by helps guide decision making and...

You can find many people and traditions that will tell you to honour and respect your parents. In this episode, we make a case for why, in adulthood, you must exceed your parents too. Unless we do this, society will become more closed and intolerant, rather than open and accepting of changes that occur in the world—which is what actually happens as the decades and centuries progress. We spea...

In most households and in schools, the rules for children are different from the rules for adults. But the time you reach adulthood, these childhood rules become obsolete and have to be abandoned. In this episode, we identify several of these childhood lessons that you must abandon in adult life, like that your own opinions aren’t good enough, or that you can get things perfect in adult ende...

In this episode, Luke and Pascal speak about how to relate to other human beings as an adult, and more generally, your place in the world. We start by speaking about the importance of approaching other people with a metaphorical cup that’s full or running over. We also discuss the importance of truth, boundary-setting as an expression of morality, human nature as fundamentally pro-social, re...

In this episode, we’re going to delve into a philosophy of adulthood that makes it empowering and liberating, rather than onerous and burdensome. We challenge a few popular notions, like that self-love is self-centred, or that truth is irrelevant in a world where narrative is everything. This is the guide to life that your parents should have given you by the age of 18, but didn’t. You...

Our team has launched a new podcast, called How to Be an Adult . It’s the trail guide to life that you should have received when you turned 18, but didn’t. Whether you’re 18 or 80, we intend to help you to feel like an equal to your peers, and to live excellently. In the first episode, your co-hosts Luke Chao and Pascal Langdale discuss what it even means to be an adult. We discu...