Joe Rogan: Everyone Has Their Own Path

Do you think it's like something that people should experience? Um, I think that's up to people. Yeah, good point. I know we have to be careful what we say to people, but I understand, but yeah. I used to think people need to do it. I used to think people, but I used to think people needed to do everything. I think you do whatever you want. Appreciate you doing everything. And also having children. There's a lot of people that say, you should have children. I don't know about that, man. I think everybody has a different path. I think you can be a complete person without ever having children. I don't, I don't think that that's necessary for me. It was very educational. It helped me a lot. I love it. I'm very happy to be a father. It's, I've learned a lot, but I don't think it's necessary. I think you can be a complete person without a lot of experiences. I think what's more important is like, what kind of experiences are you having with the people that you're around with? And are you being fulfilled? Like if you inherently, like inside of you, you always wanted to be a chess master, but you never pursued it. You're going to have that regret and that longing for something for you. It let way. If you didn't pursue that, if you didn't go after that, if you instead decided to get a job in accounting or something like that, you would have this longing to do something. And I think everyone has a different makeup, a different psychological makeup, different personnel and different interests. And I think there's a lot of people that are interested in things that I have no desire to do. And to them it's their whole life. And I'm not interested in it at all, but I'm not them. It's like finding out what it is, what it is for you. What, what is it in your life that attracts you? I've been very, very, very fortunate. And one of the things that I've been very fortunate is I, I'm, I would say I'm a risk taker, but it's more that I don't, I don't have any interest in doing safe things in terms of like, I don't have any interest in like taking an easy job, a safe job, I know I'm going to get a paycheck every week. That's never interested me. That seems like prison. Yeah. That's cool. I really, I've never been able to do it. And I always thought that I was a loser because I couldn't do that because other people could work hard and they can get a good job and they would get a pension, security. I felt like when I was young, there was something wrong with me that I couldn't do that because I grew up in New England and in Boston, everybody worked hard. There's like a hard blue collar sort of environment where everybody, I couldn't do it, man, I couldn't do it. These guys all showed up for work. Every day at 7 AM, I wanted to kill myself. Did you do it a little bit? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I tried. I did a lot of construction gigs and a lot of different small jobs, but. It's the reason, same reason why I left because I felt like it was missing something. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to leave. Yes. Well, that's you though. But look, now you're fulfilled. You're a fulfilled person. You're living your life, but that's you for other person. That would be torture. If you had some guy that really just wants to be a mathematician and someone's like, no, no, no, you're going to go to Myanmar. You're going to be a fucking left way champion. Like what? I'm not head button anybody. The fuck you're not, man. You better headbutt you. No, you're going to fight in prison. What? What? I'm not fighting in prison. Oh, for the record guys, I wasn't incarcerated. Right. I was, I was invited there. Was in prison, but that, you know, everyone has their own path. Some people like, do you know what Alex Honnold is? He's the guy who they made that movie free solo about. He's the guy who climbs all these mountains with no ropes. Oh my God. My friend did it and he fell. And he got disfigured. Uh, but now it's healing up, but he did it. No rope. How far did he fall? Uh, it looked, I have to show you the picture. Uh, it was a bad fall. It was a bad, it looked like he got bitten by a dog. He was like, and he, yeah, I guess they, they look for a rush. That's an amazing rush. They must get, I think so. But Alex, the way he described it, he said, it's not really a rush. He said, it's pretty mellow. Because if every, if you get a rush, like you're in trouble, you know, he's like the whole thing. But it's obviously there's something about that intense challenge. That's appealing to him. That doesn't attract me at all. Not even a little bit. I have no fucking desire. I don't want to even climb with ropes, but this guy loves it. Did you do bungee before? Did you try bungee? No, never done that either. No, fuck. Skydiving now. No, fuck you. You do the empty, but you don't do the skydiving. That's just, some people love it, man. I get it. I get it. Look, my friend Andy, he's a world champion. He holds the world record in one of those wing suits. My friend Andy Stump. That was a gold on mine for a while. Oh, but he's had a bunch of friends that have died, man. They've had to carry them off the mountain because they fucking hit the ground. You know, guys who have jumped and then they hear a crash. And then they realize that guy just slammed into a fucking tree. He's out. There's a really horrible video of a guy slamming into a bridge. He was trying to go through a bridge. He was trying to make it through the gap of a bridge and he misjudged and he slammed right into the bridge while these people were on it, filming it. You see him come in and he just misjudges it and BAM. He hits the bridge. It's horrific, man. If he has a strong neck, he's fine. See, I think everybody is different. Some people are put on this life to be a poet. Some people put on this way to be an author. Okay, describe put on this life. No, I mean, whoever you are, how you feel, what is the thing that you're drawn to? For some people it's architecture. They want to build houses. They're fascinated by the construction methods. They're fascinated by design and they're just really drawn to want to build houses. Some people want to make music. Some people are drawn to lyrics and they're drawn to musical notes and bars and changes and that's their thing. Everybody has a, I mean, some people have many things, you know, and something, for some people that's their problem is they have so many things. It's hard to focus on one, but really the key, I think to happiness in life is being honest with yourself and finding whatever it is that's attractive to you. Whatever it is that draws you, whether it's animation or sculpture or making clothes, what it's, everyone has a thing. While you were talking there, I felt like I was in another dimension. It felt like I was like, I lost myself. Really? Yeah. Why? That's the effect. I was like, I don't know. I'm thinking, I think I'm, I think I'm crazy. Yeah, you're definitely crazy. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, of course. To be really great at anything. I think you have to be crazy. You're like, you're doing something and then you have the feeling like, you don't know. I don't know. You're carried away. Yeah, you're getting carried away in the thoughts. Yeah, I have that all the time, man. It's a crazy life. Yeah, it is a crazy life, but it's a really crazy life if you follow your passions and it's a fucking crazy, boring life if you don't. Well said. And there's a lot of people out there that unfortunately, whether it's their family, sometimes your family, they'll try to influence you in a way to get you to do something that's safer. I mean, my own family did that. They were always trying to get me to, the big one was graduated from college, graduate from university, get a degree, you know, have a safe, you know, don't just try to do comedy. Because I know Gary Vee is a big proponent of that, like, you know, quit school and I might, and how do you do, like, cause a lot of people are stuck with the parents think, so you just said, fuck it, I'm going to do it regardless. Yeah, I think my parents gave up on trying to control me very young. I was, you know, like they didn't even want me to do martial arts when I started doing martial arts. When did you start? Really heavily when I was 15, I started when I was 14, but really heavily when I was 15. That's when I just became obsessed with type one dough and competing and, and you know, at first they didn't want me to do it, but then that was like the first thing that I ever did that made me feel like I wasn't a loser. Yeah. You know, it was like the first thing that ever did that I got really good at, like good at and like started getting recognition from it and started winning tournaments. And then I realized like, wow, if I focus on something and become obsessed with something, I can get really good at it. And so that led to learning how to do that in applying that sort of same energy to other things in life. You know, I think sometimes people just have to find a thing, whatever that thing is that really floats your boat and then find the time, find the time to pursue it and set up your life so that you have the time to pursue it. And now they're scared sometimes, oh, wait, if I do this, there's not going to be income around it. Just have perseverance and money will come. And yes, everything is possible, I think. And it's crazy that, but I know that I kind of lived it. It's true. You can do whatever you can do, whatever you want.