From Proxy: Mic Chooses the Wrong Life

Summary

Podcast Summary: "From Proxy: Mic Chooses the Wrong Life"

Podcast Information:

• Title: 10% Happier with Dan Harris
• Host/Author: 10% Happier
• Description: Self-help for smart people. World-class insights and practices from experts in modern science and ancient wisdom. Hosted by veteran journalist and best-selling author, Dan Harris.
• Episode: From Proxy: Mic Chooses the Wrong Life
• Release Date: May 18, 2025

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Introduction to Self-Compassion and Proxy Podcast

Dan Harris opens the episode by delving into the transformative practice of self-compassion, highlighting its scientific backing and personal impact. He references Kristin Neff, the pioneer of self-compassion research, and outlines the Mindful Self-Compassion Break, emphasizing the three core components:

1. Mindfulness: Acknowledging personal suffering or self-criticism.
2. Common Humanity: Recognizing that suffering is a shared human experience.
3. Self-Kindness: Speaking to oneself with the same kindness as a good friend.

At [05:00], Dan introduces Proxy, a new podcast hosted by Yowei Shaw, which serves as an "emotional investigative journalism" platform. Proxy aims to connect individuals grappling with niche emotional challenges to strangers with similar experiences or experts who can provide guidance.

Mike Nguyen’s Story: Regret Over Career Choice

The episode transitions to the core content of Proxy, focusing on the case of Mike Nguyen, a 45-year-old advertising professional and comedian. Mike grapples with deep-seated regret over not pursuing a career in medicine, a path heavily influenced by his Vietnamese immigrant parents.

Key Points:

• Cultural Expectations: Mike felt obligated to become a doctor, a prestigious role within his community, but struggled academically, particularly in math and pre-med courses.

• Turning Point: At [13:26], Mike recounts a pivotal moment during his junior year at Berkeley when he decided to drop a physics class after a coin toss, signaling his departure from the medical path.

  Mike Nguyen ([13:26]): "I took out a quarter and I said, if this is heads, I'm going to take physics. If this is tails, I'm not going to take physics. And it came up heads, which means I'm supposed to take physics. And I said, nope, not going to do it."

• Current Struggles: Despite finding fulfillment in advertising and comedy, Mike is haunted by the "what ifs" of his abandoned medical aspirations. This persistent regret affects his emotional well-being, leading him to seek assistance through Proxy.

Introducing Dr. Amy Somerville: Exploring Regret

Yowei Shaw introduces Dr. Amy Somerville, a principal research scientist and social cognitive psychologist specializing in regret. Dr. Somerville shares her extensive research background, including her highly cited paper "What We Regret Most and Why."

Key Insights:

• Definition of Regret: Drawing from Tom Gilovich and Victoria Medveck, Dr. Somerville defines regret as:

  1. An unpleasant emotion.
  2. Arising from thoughts of how things could have been different (counterfactual thinking).
  3. Stemming from actions one believes they could have changed.

  Dr. Amy Somerville ([22:48]): "Regret has three pieces. The first is that it feels bad. The second is that it's because you have a thought about how things could have been different. And the third is that it's because of something that you think you could have done differently."

• Cultural Influences: Dr. Somerville discusses how cultural backgrounds shape the experience of regret. For instance, individuals from cultures with a strong sense of fate may experience regret differently, often believing that certain outcomes are predetermined and unchangeable.

  Dr. Amy Somerville ([31:08]): "If it's his fate, you can't escape that. Yes, he probably feels bad that this accident happened, but that doesn't actually mean that he could have done anything different."

Deep Dive into Mike’s Regret

The conversation between Mike and Dr. Somerville explores the roots of his regret and its impact on his life:

• Initial Feelings Post-Dropout: Initially, Mike felt a sense of relief and freedom after leaving the pre-med track. However, as time progressed, especially post-college, economic hardships and career uncertainties reignited his regrets.

  Mike Nguyen ([15:08]): "I ended up not becoming a doctor. And ever since then, I've just been adrift."

• Cycle of Regret: Mike describes his experience as being stuck in a loop, where external challenges (like job loss) trigger his internal regrets, making it difficult for him to move forward.

  Mike Nguyen ([29:49]): "Am I living up to my full potential? For lack of a better word, am I doing, you know, the most I can do?"

• Psychological Impact: Dr. Somerville highlights that Mike’s regret is intertwined with his sense of identity and familial obligations. This makes his regret more profound, as it’s not just about a career choice but also about fulfilling cultural and familial expectations.

  Dr. Amy Somerville ([28:26]): "We carry with us two self guides of what we should be aspiring to... the ideal self and the ought self."

Transforming Regret: Insights and Conclusions

Dr. Somerville offers perspectives on how regret can be a constructive emotion:

• Regret as a Learning Tool: Regret can signal what truly matters to us, allowing individuals to realign their actions with their core values.

  Dr. Amy Somerville ([44:36]): "Regret is telling us about how we should do things differently."

• Distinguishing Sadness from Regret: Mike realizes that some of his feelings may stem more from sadness than actionable regret, suggesting a path toward emotional acceptance.

  Mike Nguyen ([44:49]): "Oh, I'm just sad. Wow. I mean, I've done therapy before..."

• Focus on the Present and Future: By understanding the nature of his regret, Mike can begin to shift his focus from "what could have been" to "what can be," fostering a sense of agency and hope.

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Notable Quotes

• Mike Nguyen ([13:26]): "If this is heads, I'm going to take physics. If this is tails, I'm not going to take physics. And it came up heads, which means I'm supposed to take physics. And I said, nope, not going to do it."

• Dr. Amy Somerville ([22:48]): "Regret has three pieces. The first is that it feels bad. The second is that it's because you have a thought about how things could have been different. And the third is that it's because of something that you think you could have done differently."

• Mike Nguyen ([15:08]): "I ended up not becoming a doctor. And ever since then, I've just been adrift."

• Dr. Amy Somerville ([44:36]): "Regret is telling us about how we should do things differently."

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Conclusion

In this episode of 10% Happier with Dan Harris, the integration of self-compassion practices with the investigative approach of Proxy provides a profound exploration of personal regret. Through Mike Nguyen’s candid narrative and Dr. Amy Somerville’s expert insights, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted nature of regret, its cultural underpinnings, and pathways to emotional healing. The episode underscores the importance of addressing inner conflicts and aligning one’s actions with personal values to foster a more fulfilling life.

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Transcript

[Dan Harris]

Foreign.

[Chrissy]

It's the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, everybody. As many of you know, I've been deeply interested in recent years by the practice of self compassion, which sounds a little treacly, but actually, in my experience, is life changing. There's a ton of scientific research to back this up, and one of the principal practices of self compassion developed by the great Kristin Neff, the researcher who pioneered the concept of self compassion and then led much of the research into it. One of the primary practices is called the mindful self compassion break. And the first step is to just wake up to the fact that you're suffering in some way or kicking your own ass. So the first step is mindfulness. The second step I'm going to hold for a second because it relates to everything else. I'm going to say the third step is to talk to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend, which is incredibly impactful. But back to the second step. The second step is something called common humanity, just bringing to mind that whatever you're dealing with right now, no matter how bespoke or odd or idiosyncratic your issue is right now. There are millions of other people, odds are, who are dealing with the same thing at this very moment. So it's that second piece of the mindful self compassion break, this thing that Kristin Neff calls common humanity, that is at the heart of a new podcast that I want to introduce you to today. Here's the concept. If you've ever been in a situation where you have a problem and you have this feeling that you're alone in the problem, that nobody else can relate, and that you wish you could talk to one person who really, really understands it from the inside? So what if, in that situation, you had your own personal investigative journalist who would scour the world for the perfect stranger with just the right experience for you to talk to. I would have loved it back in 2004 if there was somebody else who could have talked to me about what it was like to have a Coke field panic attack on national television. But anyway, back to this podcast I want to introduce you to. It's called Proxy, and it provides exactly the service I was just describing. It's hosted by Yowei Shaw, who you may remember as one of the hosts of the NPR podcast Invisibilia, which was super, super popular but sadly went away. Yohei is back, and on this new show, Proxy, Yohei investigates your niche emotional conundrums and puts you into conversation with a Proxy, a stranger who's been in nearly the exact same situation or. Or has some expertise and can hopefully help you get unstuck. Yowei calls it emotional investigative journalism, a term I've never heard before, but I really like it. So that's what we're gonna do for you today. We're gonna bring you an episode of said emotional investigative journalism from Proxy. Before we play you the episode of Proxy, I do wanna tell you about something I'm doing over on danharris.com all week at 4pm Eastern, I'm gonna be doing live guided meditations where I focus on specific forms of meditation that were designed by the Buddha as an antidote to anxiety. As you may know, there are four related meditation practices that are collectively known as the Brahma Vihras, or divine abodes. Not my preferred branding, but really I found these styles of practice to be immensely helpful in my own life. And you can think of these four interrelated flavors of meditation as a way to take it easier on yourself and more skillfully navigate the world. These styles of meditation have stood the test of time, having been practiced for 20 years, 2600 years, and are increasingly being validated by modern science, which suggests these practices can have psychological, physiological, and even behavioral benefits. So again, I'll be doing live guided meditations all week [e-mail] like any good drug dealer, I give you the first dose for free, meaning Monday's session is open to everybody and then the rest of the week is really just for paid subscribers. So you know what to do. Again, head on over to Dan Harris and get all the details. All right, enough out of me. Let's check out a new episode of this new show from Yowei Shaw. It's called Proxy. Check it out. Before we get started, I just want to let you know about something very cool that we're going to be doing in the second half of May. We are going to be doing a live meditation miniseries. Each weekday from Monday, May 19 to Friday, May 23 at 4 4pm Eastern, I will be leading a short guided meditation and then I'll be taking your questions. The whole miniseries is going to center around a set of practices that I often refer to as the Buddhist antidote to anxiety. And I'm not making this up. One of the key practices that I'll be teaching is loving kindness meditation, which the story goes was invented by the Buddha to help his monks who were dealing with a lot of fear. And loving kindness is part of a family of four related practices known as the Brahma viharas or the divine abodes. I will admit when I first encountered these practices, which are designed around cultivating loving kindness, compassion, something called sympathetic joy, and also equanimity. When I first ran into these practices, I was, as you might imagine, a little reflexively judgmental and dismissive. But I have really come to embrace these practices in a huge way over time, and they've had a massive impact on my life. And by the way, they've now been studied quite extensively in the labs and have been shown particularly loving kindness practice to have physiological, psychological and even behavioral benefits. Anyway, this is all happening [e-mail] Like I said, Monday through Friday, the week of May 19th. Like any good drug dealer, the first dose will be free. So Monday's session will be open to everybody. And then for the rest of the week you have to be a paid subscriber. So head on over to danharris.com and check it out. You've heard me talk about Quints before and I'm going to do it again because just the other day, and maybe this is tmi, but I needed some socks and underwear and I went to Quint's. Just to be clear, Quints is an advertiser on the show. So sometimes I get free stuff, but other times I go there and pay just because I like their stuff so much. So yeah, I ordered some underwear and some socks. The socks are great, really comfortable. They're the socks that you can wear with like low top Nikes and you don't see the socks, which I know is not the Gen Z thing these days. But I'm a man of a certain age and I like those kinds of socks and the underwear. The boxer briefs. One of the big problems with boxer briefs in my long history of being alive is that they can bunch up on the leg. But somebody over at Quint's figured out new technologies so that doesn't happen with the underwear I bought over there. Again, I know a little bit of extra information you don't need, but if you're in the market for underwear or if you're not a male and you've got a male in your life who needs some underwear, I highly recommend it. Anyway, they've got stuff for all genders at really low prices. As I mentioned before, in this show, there are days when Quince is all I'm wearing. Head to toe. Quince has all the things you actually want to wear, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. The best Part Everything from quints is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quint's gives you luxury pieces without the crazy markups. And Quints only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing processes and premium fabrics and finishes. Elevate your closet with quince. Go to quince.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U-I-N-C-E.com happier to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com happier.

[Dan Harris]

Hello.

[Yowei Shaw]

Hey bedraggle Podcast spouse, what was your favorite thing about mixing this week's episode?

[Kyle Cooley]

Oh, my favorite part was that your P pops are way more under control.

[Yowei Shaw]

I guess I finally learned as an audio professional to not talk directly into the microphone.

[Kyle Cooley]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Yowei Shaw]

Did you learn anything that you're going to put into practice?

[Kyle Cooley]

I don't know that I necessarily learned something that I could sum up in a single sentence, but it definitely we're.

[Yowei Shaw]

Trying to sell the show here, Kyle.

[Kyle Cooley]

Oh, you didn't let me finish. Yeah, I said nothing. I could sum up in one sentence because I'm tired because I was up till midnight mixing this fucking thing.

[Yowei Shaw]

This is Proxy and I'm Yohei Shah, your emotional investigative journalist. Today, the Case of the Man Filled with Regret for the Life that Got Away. That's after the break. So there's this stereotype about Asians. The stereotype goes Asian immigrant parent wants kid to be doctor or lawyer, while kid wants to do something that won't make money and won't bring honor to the family. Something shameful like podcasting. My parents immigrated to the US from Taiwan in the 70s and I assure you they are complex, multidimensional people. My mom loves to wear crop tops. My dad loves to talk about how hot my mom is. But this is one stereotype they did conform to. Unfortunately, I was terrible at math and was still calling my dad to do my homework by the time I got to college. I also have a terrible memory and would never have passed the bar exam. No, I decided to follow my heart and pursue my passion of long form audio journalism. Only to now read articles every week titled has the Podcast Bubble Finally Burst? But still, no regrets. I never ever think about being a lawyer or doctor. The regret that I mostly hear around this is from people like my dad, who was a doctor but really wanted to be an artist. Which is why I was really surprised to hear from An Asian with a version of the story I'd never heard before.

[Dan Harris]

Are you going to use video? Because if you do, I'm going to clean up a little bit more.

[Yowei Shaw]

Oh, I'm sorry. I should have told you. This is Mike Nguyen. He works in advertising, and he's also a comedian who's known on the Internet for roasting himself for being a menswear dork. He calls his style American prosperity core. How Americans dressed back when the middle class was prosperous. So lots of blazers with hand sewn buttonholes and Alden cordovan horse leather loafers. I don't know what that means, but apparently it signals. Hello. I take menswear very seriously.

[Dan Harris]

I do love fashion. Whenever people find out if it's a fashion, they always make fun of me. Write comics, make fun of me. My friends make fun of me. I always want to tell these people, hey, I don't dress for you guys. I dress for black teenagers. Okay?

[Yowei Shaw]

But here's the thing about Mike. Even though he followed his heart to pursue a creative passion, he's haunted by the life he didn't choose.

[Dan Harris]

So I feel in my life, I was destined to fulfill the family fate of, like, becoming a doctor. And for various reasons, I ended up not becoming a doctor. And ever since then, I've just been adrift. You know, sometimes people say, oh, you're chasing your dream. No, my dream is to be a doctor. That's the dream. The comedian thing. Everything else is second to that.

[Yowei Shaw]

Mike is the son of Vietnamese refugees, and growing up, he says, it was just understood he was going to be a doctor.

[Dan Harris]

Okay, this is the thing that's going to make me happy and make my family happy and make my mom happy and, like, make the stars align.

[Yowei Shaw]

Mike says in Vietnamese culture, there are only a couple jobs that bring prestige to the family. And for Mike, it felt good to be on this path. Like, he had a higher calling. Plus, he was good at school. He liked science, he cared about people. Everything made sense. He still remembers the day it all went south. He was a junior at Berkeley and he was struggling to keep up with his pre med classes.

[Dan Harris]

I remember I had to take physics, and I was sitting outside the physics building and it was the last day before you could drop a class. It was like, you know, the second week of school, and I took out like a quarter and I said, if this is heads, I'm going to take physics. If this is tails, I'm not going to take physics. And it came up heads, which means I'm supposed to take physics. And I said, nope, not going to do it. And I just walked right down to the administration office and I dropped the physics course.

[Yowei Shaw]

It's like your body was telling you.

[Dan Harris]

No, I think so. The idea of putting myself through that was just like. It made me feel sick. So I didn't want to do it anymore.

[Yowei Shaw]

Mike switched majors to sociology. He graduated college. He got a job at a test prep company. He moved to New York and got a job in advertising and eventually started doing comedy to give him an edge over the other copywriters and liked it. He got married. He had a kid. Today, Mike is 45. And you know that meme about how often men think about the Roman Empire. That's what it's like for Mike, but with a career that got away, even though he enjoys working in advertising, even though he loves doing comedy, he can't stop thinking back to that coin toss. What if he'd stayed in physics? What if he just gritted his teeth and gone to med school as planned?

[Dan Harris]

I was watching content on Instagram, and I found this one guy, and he's like a dad, fitness influencer type. I found out later on that he's also an md. He's like, I'm a doctor and I'm a dad, and I work out a lot. And I was reading this and I was like, hey, you know, he's a content creator and a doctor. Maybe I should give it another go. And I legit looked up a couple of things, and I at least give myself enough credit in that I am wise enough to know that I would quickly come to the reality that, holy shit, this would be absolutely crazy and I probably wouldn't enjoy it.

[Yowei Shaw]

When did this happen?

[Dan Harris]

That was, like, last week.

[Yowei Shaw]

Oh, my God.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. No, it's really always rattling in my mind all the time, constantly.

[Yowei Shaw]

Mike knows he doesn't want to go to med school, but he keeps looking into going to med school because he's stuck in a loop. He regrets not becoming a doctor, and yet he doesn't actually want to be a doctor.

[Dan Harris]

I don't know, like, if you've ever done this, but, like, you know, you're playing an online video game and you sort of, like, mess up your one chance to. To, like, get the big score or, like, kill the boss, and you just have to wait around until the game starts over again. It feels like that. It feels like, oh, I missed my chance. Well, guess I'll just float around and stuff until I get to go again or I die one of the two. You know, like, it's that Feeling.

[Yowei Shaw]

And that's why Mike came to us, to find him a proxy to talk to a stranger with just the right experience with his conundrum and can hopefully help him get less stuck. Mike wants to know if there's anything he can do to silence the rattling of this regret. Or at least anything he can do to make this earworm less annoying.

[Dan Harris]

Is there a way to turn this into something healthy? Because I do feel like it's going to be something I have to live with, so I'm going to have to just come to terms with it.

[Yowei Shaw]

Okay, Mike, thank you for bringing me this case. I will. I will try my best to find you a proxy. I do have one last question, though. If you had to vocalize the sound of this emotional conundrum, what would it be?

[Dan Harris]

Vocalize the sound?

[Yowei Shaw]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Gosh, it probably. Let me think here.

[Amy Somerville]

Okay.

[Dan Harris]

What was there a sound to this feeling? The first thing that comes to mind. I don't know. This is totally right. You know, the elevator muzak, waiting sound. Waiting room music is what I would describe it as, right? So, you know, it's not entirely unpleasant, but it's a little, like, boring and a little bit tedious.

[Yowei Shaw]

After the break, Mike has a proxy conversation. And we attempt to break Mike out of the emotional waiting room he's stuck in. Please hold. And proxy will be right back. Six months go by after that first call with Mike. Six months of tedious hold music, and then finally, it's the day of the Praxi conversation. I log into the video call with Mike. You're wearing a robe right now.

[Dan Harris]

I am wearing this awesome wrap knit cardigan.

[Yowei Shaw]

A lot has happened in the six months since we spoke. Some good things.

[Dan Harris]

My daughter was born in August. I can't remember if we talked since then.

[Yowei Shaw]

And some not so good things.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, I lost my job.

[Yowei Shaw]

Oh, I'm so sorry, Mike.

[Dan Harris]

Uh, it's okay. It's okay. Yeah, that afternoon was definitely scary. It was like a gut punch, you know, I did the whole thing, the Asian thing, where it's like, did I do something wrong? Should I have worked harder?

[Yowei Shaw]

Oh, yes, Mike, I know all about it. I made a three part series about getting laid off. Listen to the layoff trilogy, wherever you get your podcast. Anyway, Mike says after losing his job, he found himself scrolling through Reddit one day.

[Dan Harris]

I don't know how they know. Maybe they listened in on our conversations, but Reddit serves me up an ad for St. George University. Do you know this school? It is a Caribbean medical school. And it said, are you ready to make the leap to medicine. And I was like, I just got laid off. I need to provide for my family. Reddit is serving up this ad for Caribbean Medical School. And I was like, is this it? Am I doing this?

[Yowei Shaw]

Did you look up what it would take to go to medical school again?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. I mean, actually, you did. Not at the school. I just, like, talked to my friend, and just the idea of having to, like, take Biology 1A again made my stomach sick.

[Yowei Shaw]

Wow.

[Dan Harris]

I do think this is a little bit of the grass is always going to be greener. And I know, you know, doctors have very tough lives, but it's like, I do want someone to kind of just give me a sense check. Even if it is like, hey, it's awesome, dude, you fucked up. At least somebody told me, hold that.

[Yowei Shaw]

Thought because the proxy's here.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Yowei Shaw]

Are you ready for me to let them in?

[Dan Harris]

I'm nervous.

[Yowei Shaw]

So the proxy now on the show, our job is to help Mike investigate his feelings. We do that by finding him a proxy to talk to. That could be a stranger with shared life experience. It could be a researcher who studied the issue at hand. In Mike's case, I thought about looking for another Asian who struggled with the same kind of regret. But then I thought, maybe it'd be helpful to talk to someone who's studied regret, someone who could. Could help Mike understand what he was feeling and maybe even reframe his relationship with regret. And then I came across a regret researcher who was nice enough to agree to this proxy conversation experiment.

[Amy Somerville]

Hi.

[Dan Harris]

Hey.

[Amy Somerville]

Hey, nice to meet you.

[Yowei Shaw]

Meet Amy Somerville, principal research scientist at Kairos Research and a social cognitive psychologist who used to run a whole research lab on regret at Miami University in Ohio.

[Amy Somerville]

So, I'm Dr. Amy Somerville. I have a PhD in social psychology. I've published one of the most cited papers on regret with my graduate advisor called what We Regret Most and why, and have done research on regret for, I guess, over 20 years. At this point.

[Dan Harris]

No, I'm already getting very triggered by the fact that she introduced herself as doctor. So I was like. I was like, sheesh.

[Yowei Shaw]

I asked Mike to explain his case to Amy, and he tells her how he felt destined to become a doctor, how he couldn't keep up with his pre med classes, and about that coin toss outside his physics class.

[Dan Harris]

And I flipped a coin and I said, if it's heads, I will take the class. If it's tails, I will not. And it turned out heads. And I said, no, I'm still not taking it. And I walked down to the registrar and I dropped the class. And it felt awesome. It felt amazing. And that was pretty much it. I never even looked back after that.

[Yowei Shaw]

Except Mike did look back. He can't stop looking back. That's literally the point of this whole episode.

[Dan Harris]

And I always think, like, what if I had just done that? There's always that part of me that is like, should I just apply to medical school now?

[Yowei Shaw]

I'm curious. Any initial reactions?

[Amy Somerville]

Yeah, gosh, a lot. So I guess maybe a place to start is. Let me define how I think about regret, because I think people come to it with a lot of different ideas of, like, what regret means and like Noregrets and all of that. So in my work I use a definition from Tom Gilovich and Victoria Medveck that I think is awesome. And it says, regret has three pieces. The first is that it feels bad. The second is that it's because you have a thought about how things could have been different. And the third is that it's because of something that you think you could have done differently. And so I think it sounds like we're check, check, check.

[Dan Harris]

Oh, yeah.

[Amy Somerville]

And sort of the technical term for this, like, thought about how things could have been different is a counterfactual. So. Right. Like literally contrary to the facts. So it's this imagined possible world of how things could have been different. Regrets in particular seem to be kind of this combination of I had a chance to do something different that maybe is now kind of a lost opportunity. I can't just like instantly fix it. But also it still feels like really relevant to my goals and who I am. This sense of like, who am I as a person and what is my identity and role in the world? I mean, that's like the big question for everyone. So, like, of course, that's a thing we all keep wrestling with throughout our lives. So it makes sense that things that really touch on that are going to be places we come back to.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, you're looking into my soul, doctor.

[Amy Somerville]

This is not that kind of doctor. Just to be clear.

[Dan Harris]

Not that kind of doctor, but still.

[Yowei Shaw]

Amy is a psychologist. She doesn't treat people. But once upon a time, Amy actually also wanted to be a doctor. Like Mike, she was in a pre med program. And just like Mike, Amy wasn't sure if it was right for her. So during a summer program where she was shadowing doctors, she asked them all a question.

[Amy Somerville]

If somebody was on the fence about whether they should go to med school or do something different, what would you tell them? And every single One of them told me they should do something different. If you can imagine a life for yourself doing anything other than this, you should go do that.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. Huh.

[Amy Somerville]

Because it's too hard for too long.

[Dan Harris]

But this seems almost like a trick, you know? Well, only the real ones. You. You're a bit of a softy, so you should get out of here. So, you know, it's. It's kind of like. Also goes up against the way I saw myself. I always was the smart kid in class, and it, like, took out one of the legs of my identity. Well, not only do I. Am I not smart, I clearly don't even have the wherewithal or the gumption to do this other thing. So now, what the hell, you know? I'm just some guy with great style. Like what? Like, what else can I do?

[Yowei Shaw]

Well, Mike, if it's okay, I want to go back to that moment with the coin toss.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Yowei Shaw]

It seems like you were very certain of how you felt about that decision in the moment. Like, it just felt bad to, like, listen to the coin and stay in physics.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Yowei Shaw]

And that's why you dropped out.

[Dan Harris]

Yep.

[Yowei Shaw]

And then you said it felt awesome.

[Dan Harris]

It felt awesome.

[Yowei Shaw]

And so I'm just curious. Why do you think you trusted your gut so much back then, and why aren't you trusting it now?

[Dan Harris]

Hmm. I think a lot of it has to do with, like, you're in college. You're, like, kind of a hedonist. You know, you're doing a lot of things because it feels good. You know, it felt good at the time. And I think sometimes I frame it as. That's a kind of an immature response, that as a rational person, you should do the thing that may not feel good, but it is the good thing, the thing that's right for whatever your family or yourself or what have you. And so I discount some of that action because, hey, we also grew up Catholic. You can layer that on top as well. So things which feel good are probably bad for you. Things that feel bad are probably good for you. You know, so there is sort of that element as well.

[Amy Somerville]

So there's work by a researcher called Tory Higgins, who basically says we carry with us, like, two self guides of what we should be aspiring to. And one of them is he calls the ideal self. So what is the aspirational version of yourself that you most want to be? And then what's your ought self? So what are the obligations and duties and the things you feel like you should be? The idea is that sort of like, in general, our oughts are kind of easier to repair. Like, if there's a thing you should do, you can just go do it. I got up last night at 11:30 to be like, oh, God, did I close my garage door? Yeah, it's that kind of like, oh, did you do the thing? Okay, now I can forget it. And there's some work in the regret science that actually for most people, the things that we regret most over time are related to our ideal self. And it's sort of interesting to me that it sounds like it's kind of like your parents ideal more than your ideal, but also, you know, it's kind of became ingrained in you both as an obligation and because of your vision of who you are in the family. That kind of like meeting their ideal became your ideal 100%.

[Dan Harris]

I have a bunch of questions for you. I hope that's okay to back.

[Amy Somerville]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

One is, you know, I always wondered if it's like a. It's like a cultural thing, because the way the language I would describe is, it's not just my family Talking about like 1,000 generations of my family, you know, are pretty bummed out. It's a very Mulan situation. The ancestors are like, well, we sent this guy to America and now this guy decided to go on this podcast. What's the deal with that? I don't know if there's anything where I don't want to say, like, my regret is more enhanced than other people. I'm sure other people have a tremendous amount of regret, but it's like I feel sometimes that there's a cultural thing as well.

[Amy Somerville]

Yeah. I mean, so I've actually done some work on cross cultural stuff and not specifically with Vietnamese culture. So I want to be clear, like, I don't have like, specific expertise there.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amy Somerville]

So I have a paper looking at Arab students compared to white Midwestern students. And there. Right. Like, totally different understanding of fate. It's really this idea of like, your fate is written. So they actually basically don't report some of the patterns of counterfactuals that I was talking about earlier.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Amy Somerville]

So if you ask, hey, there's this car accident, how much is he thinking, oh, I should have taken another route? And people say, well, no, because if God wrote for him to have this accident, it doesn't matter what road he was on. Like, the accident was written. That was his fate.

[Dan Harris]

Right.

[Amy Somerville]

If it's his fate, you can't escape that. Yes, he probably feels bad that this accident happened, but that doesn't actually mean that he could have done anything different. So it's really interesting to me that for you, it's sort of this, like, I defied my fate.

[Dan Harris]

That's really sort of the thing is that I always joke around again with my wife. Because, you know, me and my wife, we live in Brooklyn. We have these kind of artistic jobs. And I always joke with her that I'm supposed to be living in San Jose, driving a Tesla, married to a Vietnamese woman. We eat pho every single day. Maybe if I'm not a doctor, maybe I sell medical equipment. And I see this life over and over again. I'm not in it, but my cousins are in it. And every time I check in with them, I can't help but compare my life to their life. You know, it's like, who has a better life? And it gets complicated, but it is there, right? And I'm confronted with the other one, the other me, right? And I often say I'm not supposed to be here. How many Vietnamese comedians can you even name? You know? Like, there's only, like, three of us. And so I'm constantly grappling with this fact that I chose something different. My life turned out radically different.

[Amy Somerville]

Yeah. So that there's definitely, like, pieces of the regret literature that speak to that. I was, like, writing down all sorts of things as you were talking.

[Dan Harris]

It's a little embarrassing for me to say.

[Amy Somerville]

No, not at all. So there's sort of two pieces of a counterfactual, right? There's the, like, if I had done this, then this other thing would have been different. And so you can imagine all sorts of counterfactuals that you can have where, I don't know, like, if aliens had invaded today, then my son could have ice cream for dinner. And it's like, well, okay, the first is so improbable that that doesn't even make sense as a thing. But you have this really clear, like, if I had made another decision, right? Like, it's really easy to imagine what, walking into the physics class instead of the registrar's office, right. Like, Frost writes this whole poem about the road I didn't travel. And I kind of don't know what was down there. But, like, your cousins are walking that road.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Amy Somerville]

You can really clearly see, like, here's what would have been different if you, too, had stayed on that path. But counterfactuals aren't the only comparisons out there. Social comparison also is a thing and has its own set of emotions that go with it. Like envy and pride are kind of the. Like, Cousins of regret and relief. And it's interesting to me that it feels like regret to you and not like, oh, I feel envious of this person who's living the life that I was supposed to have. It is about your decision and not about, like, oh, I want their life.

[Yowei Shaw]

Yes, that's a question. Do you want their life?

[Dan Harris]

No.

[Yowei Shaw]

You know, that was an immediate answer, Mike.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I mean, there are some things I would enjoy, for sure. I think I would like stability for my family, for my kids, But I don't want to drive a Tesla. I would love to eat pho every single week. That would be great. But as far as, like, actually being implanted into their life, it doesn't sound appealing either. You know what I'm saying? This is really interesting. I never thought about it, like, envy versus regret, huh?

[Yowei Shaw]

After the break, we get to the root of Mike's regret and how regret can be hopeful, even useful emotion. Welcome back to Proxy. So picking up where we left off, Amy now wants to go back to the coin toss. The fateful day when Mike flipped the coin and dropped the class, even though the coin told him to stay in pre med.

[Amy Somerville]

I wrote down that when you talked about, like, it felt amazing. It felt awesome, and I never looked back. And it was like, but you are so.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a really good point. Yeah, you got me there, guys.

[Amy Somerville]

Ha ha. Problem solved.

[Dan Harris]

No, but you are onto something, because there was a period of time where I didn't feel bad about it. I was still in college. I knew people who were going to med school. And actually the woman who is now my wife, she was also in the track. She went really far. She took the mcat, but she didn't go to medical school. And I remember when she was studying, I got to take the MCAT tomorrow. And I was like, that sounds terrible. God, I don't have to do it. So for a little while, it didn't bother me that much, but it wasn't very long lasting. I remember after I graduated, I moved back to Orange county in California, where, you know, my parents lived, and I was living with them, and I had a very hard time finding a job. I couldn't even really articulate what kind of job I was looking for. My parents were, like, throwing all sorts of hilarious job titles at me. Become a human resources guy. They were, like, literally just naming jobs that they had, like, seen on tv. They all sounded terrible to me. I was like, these jobs sound so boring. And so I was unemployed. I was in my 20s. I felt like A big loser. And I remember that's when I was like, oh, maybe I could go back to med school. And that's really where I was. Like, now I'm, like, kind of in this loop.

[Amy Somerville]

Interesting. Yeah. And so it sounds like it was only when there was other stuff in your life that was kind of dissatisfying, that then it was like, oh, maybe the thing that would have made all this better is if I'd gone to med school.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Amy Somerville]

I think sometimes we have regrets where it sort of comes from the negative emotion first. Like, something feels bad, and then we just sort of want to look around and be like, well, what is it that could have changed this? When I talk to people about regret, it's like, oh, you're a regret researcher. Do you have regrets? I'm like, I don't have a ton, and I don't have a ton that I really want to talk about. But I will sort of broadly say I've had a traumatic loss. And if, you know people who have gone through that, whether it's losing someone to suicide or violence or addiction or whatever, that oftentimes. And in the data, Right. You see people saying, like, oh, if I had just done something different.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Amy Somerville]

If I'd had a better intervention than my friend wouldn't have OD'd.

[Dan Harris]

Right.

[Amy Somerville]

Or if I had agreed to go to the party, then I could have been the DD and they wouldn't have driven drunk and been in the accident.

[Dan Harris]

Hmm.

[Amy Somerville]

Certainly in your case. Right. Like, there really was this path, and there really was this decision. But it's also the case that, like, one of the great secrets of adulthood is that actually, like, being right out of college kind of sucks. Like, you have this, like. Like, idyllic experience of, like, all of your needs were catered to as if you were a child.

[Dan Harris]

All your friends. Yeah.

[Amy Somerville]

All your friends were right there. And yet also, like, you had all this independence of adulthood. It's, like, really kind of the sweet spot. At least at Amherst Lake. Someone else cooked for me, like, every day of my college career. And then suddenly you get out, and it's like, oh, God, I have to go to the grocery store. I have, like, more than, like, three hours of obligation a day. This is crazy. How does anyone live like this?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Amy Somerville]

And so I do wonder a little bit about how much of it is. Being 23 sucks.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Amy Somerville]

And latching on to here's the thing that I know could have been different, and it would have put me in this totally different place. And, like, if you didn't have that. Is there some other counterfactual you would have generated in that moment? But for you, there was just this clear, like, oh, yeah, maybe it was med school. Like some people have the romantic one that got away from college, and you have, like, the career that got away.

[Dan Harris]

The career that got away. It is interesting because it almost feels almost sometimes like a. Almost like a default excuse. I don't know. Like, I was very interested in, you know, econ. Maybe I could have become a finance guy, but I never think I'm like, oh, I should have become a finance guy, because I'm like, that seems so odd. I guess I could have become an NFL football player. There's all sorts of weird things you could say, but it defaults always to this one thing.

[Yowei Shaw]

Well, Mike, when the regret pops up, does it happen around times when, like, stuff is hard and bad, or is it just all the time, kind of like, randomly?

[Dan Harris]

I mean, I would definitely say. I think it is definitely triggered by things where I need something. Like, gosh, my wife and I are like, always like, we want to buy a house, and it's impossible to because I'm not a billionaire. So it would be nice if I had a little bit more money, you know, or during this layoff that just happened.

[Yowei Shaw]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

And this is another thing I was going to ask you about is, like, this career that I have, whether it's in advertising or even worse, in comedy, it is only setbacks. Comedy is almost entirely setback after setback until you were either famous or you were dead, and that is it. And so you're constantly confronted with, did you make the right decision? Why did you spend so much time doing this thing? You know, I've been doing comedy for maybe, gosh, I don't know, like 10 or 11 years at this point. And I've sunk an immense amount of time into it. Going to open mics or writing, which generate absolutely zero income, just doing this thing. Because I. I feel sometimes I have no other choice to do it because I feel I am a creative person and I have to do it, and I'm an idiot, but every single time I'm there, I'm like, I could be somewhere else.

[Yowei Shaw]

I'm wondering, is this regret around becoming a doctor, is it about success and how you're feeling about yourself, rather than, like, this particular regret around becoming a doctor?

[Dan Harris]

I think it is definitely like, am I living up to my full potential? For lack of a better word, am I doing, you know, the most I can do? And I was just saying, like, I have to be a creative person. And it's led me to this point, and sometimes I feel guilty about that. You know, I have a lot of anxiety around, like, well, I've chosen this life, and I hope my children don't have to pay for it later on because, like, they didn't get into a great school or something like that. Well, that gets into a whole other thing. But I'm, like, tearing up a little bit. Sorry. So, like, it's just. It's. It's a lot. It's, like, kind of weird.

[Yowei Shaw]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

I'm just kind of getting emotional, I guess. It's just, like, for me and my wife, we're, like, creative people, and, like, if I pay the price for it, it's my life, but I don't want anyone else to pay for my own weakness or hedonism or whatever you want to call it. You know what I'm saying? Like, my children didn't ask for that. That's a whole other thing. Yeah.

[Amy Somerville]

Yeah. I'm a parent, too, and so I totally get, like. I feel like so much of, like, parenthood is about, you brought this person into the world, you have this obligation to them. Am I meeting that kind of, like, role that I'm supposed to be fulfilling? But I think it's easy to think about, here's the things that would be better if I was a doctor.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Amy Somerville]

Like, I might have more career stability, more financial stability, but also, there's stuff you'd be giving up and you'd be regretting that. Like, oh, my kid is sick, and I had to have the nanny pick them up. I'm in clinic right now, and I can't just drop it and go home and, like, take care of my kid. And, like, oh, I can't go to that game. Oh, now I'm letting my kid down in all these other ways.

[Dan Harris]

That's absolutely right.

[Amy Somerville]

I feel like maybe one of the things that I do want to say is that in general, I come from, like, an academic tradition of thinking of regret as, like, a really useful emotion to us.

[Dan Harris]

Oh.

[Amy Somerville]

Like, regret is telling us about how we should do things differently.

[Yowei Shaw]

Mike, why did your mouth open when Amy said regret is a useful emotion?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I mean, I. I've always thought of this as just, like, something I'm just going to have to deal with for the rest of my life.

[Amy Somerville]

For me, I think it can be really helpful to kind of think about, is this regret helping me? Is there something here that I could learn? Is there something I could do differently? And if not, Is it really a regret or do I just sort of feel sad again with sort of examples of things like traumatic loss? I don't really think, oh, like here's the one action I could have taken and everything would have been okay. I'm just sad. I'm sad this thing happened and I wish there was something that could have made it different.

[Dan Harris]

Wow.

[Amy Somerville]

Yeah. Like it really sucks to live in a high cost of living area where you can't buy a house. Yeah, it really sucks to have live under capitalism with economic unseen stability. But even if you had gone to med school, what are the things that would be different? Maybe it's stable, but there are these other costs that come with it.

[Dan Harris]

I don't know, maybe this because I'm just a straight man with toxic masculinity, but the idea that I'm just sad is so profound. Oh, I'm just sad. You know, next time I feel this coming on, maybe I'm just bummed out. And there is a lot of stuff to be bummed out about globally and in a micro sense it sounds really silly, but I've never thought of it like just being sad. Wow. I mean, I've done therapy before where you take an emotion and you kind of look at it and say, well, this anxiety is because maybe it's, I need to pay attention to something in my life. But there is also emotions, I think where there is nothing to do. This is just how it is. To kind of understand that there is no action is very freeing because you could just be sad. But I'm bummed out. I'm going to have a candy bar now and just deal with it.

[Yowei Shaw]

Yeah, well. So Amy, you said that regret can be a useful emotion. Regret can tell us what is important to us. And what I'm hearing from this conversation again and again, Mike, is like family is really important to you, right?

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Yowei Shaw]

Family. Your relationship with your parents, your relationship with your community, your kids. Yeah, like family, family, family. And if you were gonna think about this regret you have take away all the bad parts, all the anxieties, all the bad feelings. What do you think it's pointing at?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I mean, gosh, you think about the inverse of regret, which is like all the things which are awesome, you know, And I have a lot of awesome things. My amazing knitwear, for example.

[Amy Somerville]

You have to give that up and live in scrubs. Can you imagine?

[Dan Harris]

I hate scrubs so much. It's the worst thing in the world anyways. I feel the most fulfilled. The specific moment is when I am in the kitchen, and my wife is feeding both my kids or one of my kids, and I'm, like, running food to them. I'm, like, cooking food. You know, my wife is like, okay, we need boiled eggs, because that's only. He's going to eat. I'm like, on it. Boiled egg stat. You know, the front of house wants eggs. I got to make eggs. I'm kind of. But I feel awesome because I feel like I am, you know, providing for my family, literally. You know, I'm the perfect, like, thing in the machine that is making this happen. It's very actionable and doable, but, you know, with my children, I'm trying to think about values I want to give them, and I think that it is worthwhile to try hard. It's not a good thing, I think, to just do the minimum. And so I think I do regret maybe not giving my all. Maybe I didn't want to be a doctor, but I do think there was probably a little bit of me I left on the table as far as, like, I didn't work as hard as I could have. I think I corrected that later on in life, but I want to be able to say that I gave it my all.

[Yowei Shaw]

Okay, we are near the end. Thank you both so much. This was such a roller coaster. Okay, final question. Mike, I asked you to vocalize the sound of your niche emotional conundrum way back when.

[Dan Harris]

Oh, yeah.

[Yowei Shaw]

Many, many months ago. And you told me it was elevator music, like, waiting music.

[Dan Harris]

Ah, yes, I did. Yes.

[Yowei Shaw]

I'm curious, what is the sound of the niche emotional conundrum now? Has it changed at all?

[Dan Harris]

No, this is different, because now I forgot that I had said Muzak, and I totally remember why I said Muzak, because it was sort of like, I feel like my life is, like, on hold or waiting. I'm waiting for something now. It just feels like, ugh, now I gotta do work on myself. Oh, that's so much. That's so much harder. I think med school is probably easier than working on myself. I don't want to do that.

[Yowei Shaw]

So it's a groan.

[Dan Harris]

Oh, yes. Thank you, Dr. Amy. This is. This is awesome.

[Amy Somerville]

It's been so great getting to meet you and getting to talk to you.

[Yowei Shaw]

Thank you to Mike Nguyen for being our special guest today. You can listen to Mike every week on his podcast, Asian Not Asian. And you can check out his American prosperity core outfits on Instagram Icepants Bro. And thank you to Amy Somerville for being our proxy today. As Amy pointed out to me, much of the social Science research that informs today's episode is now the target of massive funding cuts across several government agencies. But she said there is something you can do about it. You can let your elected officials know about the impact this research has had on you. You can find out more by going to the website for the Consortium of social science associations, cossa.org that's the show we have for you this week. We'll be back with a new episode on Tuesday, May 20. New episodes every other Tuesday for the rest of the year, which Chrissy, a listener from Philadelphia, is thrilled about because she loves gossiping about Proxy episodes with friends.

[Chrissy]

Hi.

[Yowei Shaw]

Hey Chrissy. What do you. What do you have over there?

[Chrissy]

This is an apple. My friend Andrew got it for me at the Wegmans.

[Yowei Shaw]

So you like eating apples, huh?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I love apples.

[Yowei Shaw]

And what about proxy? You like proxy?

[Chrissy]

I love proxy. I love feelings and talking about them.

[Yowei Shaw]

Okay, so if you had to do some proxy math, how many Golden Delicious apples is a proxy episode worth to you?

[Amy Somerville]

Nine.

[Yowei Shaw]

Nine Golden Delicious apples. If we're talking organic, that's like $13.50 she's willing to pay per episode, but because she's a Patreon member for just $5 a month, Chrissy's getting a steal. Roxy is an independent podcast and we rely on listener support. We need to get to at least +3,000 subscribers this year to keep making the show and we are at about 300 right now. Thank you to everyone who's already signed up. For just $5 a month, you'll get ad free episodes and exclusive bonus interviews. So be thrifty like Chrissy. Sign [e-mail] ProxyPodcast that's patreon.com ProxyPodcast as always, you can follow us on Instagram proxypodcast and I'm Owe Shaw. We also have a free newsletter sign up to get dispatches from the emotions beat, behind the scenes content and the latest proxy gossip. We'll have those links in the show. Notes this episode was edited by John Delore and Tim Howard, produced by me and mixed by Kyle Cooley. Proxy is also produced by Kim Nadervane Petersa with help from Anna Karan Santana and Nick Leblanc. Our newsletter editor is Juliana Feliciana Reyes and music in this episode by Tim Howard and theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to Audrey Martovic, Yori Lozorto, Laura Starcheski and Mathilde Urfelino. Proxy is a proud member of Radiotopia from prx, a network of independent creator owned listener supported podcasts. Discover audio with vision at Radiotopia fm. And if you have a niche emotional conundrum you'd like investigated by proxy, get in [e-mail] we're taking cases Kyle, how often do you regret marrying a podcast host?

[Kyle Cooley]

I think it's a good counterbalance to someone marrying a music producer. So anytime I have complaints, I realize that things that ex girlfriends would complain about me.

[Yowei Shaw]

Oh, like all your complaints about me? That's what your exes would say about you.

[Chrissy]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shaw]

So it's karma. In a way. It's poetic justice.

[Chrissy]

Yeah.

[Kyle Cooley]

Except I didn't make them mix my podcast.

[F]

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