The Flex and Rooms Daily Podcast.
Hi everyone, it's Flexing Frooms.
Hang off it. You look at your face? Okay, is not talking to me? I am having talking to Brook producer. I don't know what happened Brook.
Whenever I say hello, oh, goodbye, Brook gives me this little snider look as if I'm being an absolute clown.
I'm literally just looking.
We got one of these things going on in school, where like someone looks at you and you can't stop laughing.
But it's the opposite.
I can't stop having emotional outbursts.
And you've said it so many times, I think you believe it. What were we talking about in one of the other episodes that the illusory effect, or we hear something, the more likely we are to believe it's true. You keep telling us, we keep looking at you, so you believe it.
I'm paranoid. Anyway, today's podcast, we are going to be talking about how much income.
Yeah, the happiness income threshold. Some studies came out in twenty ten in the US and then was brought back to life revived in twenty twenty one. I have no doubt, due to COVID and other situations that we're impacting people's income. But back in the day, they deduced that there was a certain number of certain number of cash flows per year that would help you maintain a very basic level of happiness and freem and ire debating whether or not that is true or not true for us, and conceptually,
if there was a number, what would it be? Let's get it flex and frooms fle Sie.
We love to talk about the apocalypse?
Do we love it? Now? Before you were just humoring me, but now you love it. That's the conversion process.
It's a conversion And I also have a lot of respect for my co hosts. So I'm just trying to get involved in things that you liked, to have more in common with you.
I don't feel the same pressure and.
It shows well. Fart Content Place tell us a story about what happens when you do diarrhea. So I came across this post on Reddit and this is.
Do you frequent and read it these days? There's been a specific pipeline, And I don't know when I started.
It is it started in twenty fifteen. For me, I was going for some relationship advice, then got myself on the front page, like the homepage, and started getting interested in other little links and crypto. So I came across this post which was a bottle of vegemite, glass jar of vegemite, and on the bottom.
Is it a glass jar? Bottle? Oh, you make it too easy.
It was a glass jar and the bottom of the glass shart it had its expiry date. Do you want to know when that expiry date was?
Can I guess? Yeah? Ninety four?
Oh so close ninety five?
Ooh, it's this bottle.
This glass shard came to be in the uninety nine five, which was when I was born. You were one years old. And what we found out in looking at the picture. Some of the comments pointed out that vegemite never expires, and it never expires because it's full of salt.
Never well, had the picture tell you that?
I don't know. I think someone did some googling and supposedly vegemite never expire.
A bunch of kitchen start eating sixty year old VEGEMI you like, I don't know, Reddit said.
Well, it turns out vegemite is not the only food stuff that supposedly never goes off. Here are some others and this is for you to start going and buying pubbing the apocalypse eventually does occur.
We're in it now, but I won't get into it.
Well, tell me if you got these in new cupboard honey. Honey may crystallize over time, but it won't actually expire or become unusual because of course it's made from the natural elements.
Do natural elements not expire?
Some like my spirits? Well?
Of course, all right.
Sugar, both white and brown sugar can be used indefinitely if they're stored in an airtime container, white rice, salt, corn starch, vinegar, pure vanilla extract, maple syrup, vinegar, soy sauce, powdered milk, and popcorn.
It's quite good.
That's like to be essential.
Yeah, you can do a bunch of stuff like that.
A lot of vitamins and minerals there. Definitely bake a cake, for sure, a mug.
Cake, scones, damper, pretty little pancake. I might need eggs, No, you.
Don't need eggs anyway. That's some really useful information that I'll be taking a heat of in the next ten to fifteen years.
Now, now is the.
Time stop it. I don't know how you think there's an apocalypse so you can still find a way to come to work.
Literally, we're gonna talk about that, and I'm in the trenches. What did I say? Personal? Hell, I know the apocalypse is happening. Everyone's like, Eh, let's make jokes.
This is flex and frooms on cada.
What's that sound of FLEXI? It's the sound of starting a new segment, cracking it open. And this was gonna be a good one.
Take it away, FORMI have you ever thought well and hard and diligently about how much money you actually need to mean happiness?
Ah, it's a very loaded question. My first initial thought is I need to own a house that I own out right. Okay, therefore it's collateral.
Give me a number, babe, give me a number. Maybe not for you the average person. How much money think the average person needs per year? Yeah?
Too many variables for me, for someone my age, in my life circumstance. The minimum that I need to be happy. My rent right now.
Is oh, please please.
I can't extrapolate money's like as they put a number to it. No, because I can't extrapolate, extrapolate like money's inherent value for verse, like my own ego. If I find it very difficult to separate the two. So therefore I don't have a number. If I'm picking a number that i'd love, a million dollars a year.
Okay, not the question I asked, Thank you. You know, there's this thing called a happiness income threshold, and it is, as I described, the amount of money one needs to make to maintain a base level of happiness. Now, for I only have us darted for this, so rip to anyone who's not in the US, all of us listening. But according to a study done in twenty ten, the average US citizen would need seventy five thousand dollars per year to be happy. And at the time, fifty k
was the median income. So it's about, like, you know, a quarter more than you would anticipate. Now you said a million dollars is what you'd need to be happy. I'm sure you're quite happy now with what you're making, so at about twenty five percent on top of that'd be quite good. And that's just per year. Now, the important thing there is to know is there is an income threshold for everyone. There is a point in time that if your income drops below that threshold, no matter
what it is, you will be unhappy about it. So the solution is figure out what it is diligently, not so you can budget, but just so you know. So if you know your income threshold is fifty k, like, this is important for you to remember. So going below it is not just like that wouldn't be chill. It's going to affect your your ability to conjure up happiness for yourself.
Find it very hard to reconcile with because a lot of people can't dictate how much they get paid. I don't have enough time to take a second job, Whereas I think it's more hopeful to think this is the number like.
For you just that same like people have said this who the people who did the study, They've said this is the number I would need to maintain happiness because they've realized that their happiness is tied to well, if I can pay my rent and if I can buy nice things, and if I can do this at a minimum, this number would be good for me. And maybe why you're struggling with it is because it's conceptual for you, where a lot of people money is practical.
Really yeah, no, I'm actually thinking about the practicalities of it.
Says who's had a million dollars to be happy.
I'm just like doing manifestation. No. I think, of course, if you don't have a certain amount of money, then you're not going to be happy because all these other pressures start happening. And also because to budget and take things that promote happiness, like going on holidays, you need a certain money money to do that, and I know a lot of people can't. So I understand the practicalities
of it. But me personally, as I said, I can't extrapolate money's actual value from my ego, and I have the opportunities to make more money at times.
Okay, elon.
Crypto gottair.
First it was Bezos and now it's fumy musk like to get around. I'm ragging on you, Okay, okay, wrap it up hard sometimes. So the question is how much money does one need to be happy? It's philosophical because the question, as Fremis explained, cannot be answered simply yes
at all. But based on studies they can deduce that well, in twenty ten, they could for Americans that seventy five K would be enough to sustain happiness because it would take into consideration all of a person's basic fundamental needs. And we're not talking like food, water, whatever, but you know,
little luxuries and things that would keep you happy. Now, for me, the contradiction is, if we don't know the amount of money it's going to take to feel a sense of happiness, then is it counterintuitive to tie in success to money in any capacity? Perhaps? Right, because if I could say, you know, a million flatter years is what it's going to take, then working towards a million flat a year is what it's going to take, right, Yeah, if one hundred k year is what it's going to take.
And this is not this is not to say that there are things outside of money that don't make you happy, but we're presuming that income is tied to a lot of what's generating our happiness right now. And so if we know the number, that we can work towards it, and it gives us also the buffer to you know, the freedom that the money will give us, gives us like the emotional energy to work on life's greater issues
that money cannot fix. But if there is no number, and it's this infinite amount of money and this concept that's tied to so much more than just the practicalities of life, like ego and pride and whatever, then how do you manage that for yourself? And like you in particular, m I.
Think it's always important to maintain financial literacy, and I think sometimes, especially when things aren't going your way, it's easy to just turn a blind eye and also like to be financially literally you need reasons why, Like I feel like for certain people, it's easy to be like, yeah, I need more money, so I'm gonna work harder, But
for the vast majority of people that's not possible. So therefore it's a little bit depressing to like if you were to sit down and actually budget and figure out what you need. For a lot of people that don't have the mobility to then get that money, sometimes it's nice to be going in blind, going way blind, like just vibing out, like just getting your paycheck and like adapting your sense of happiness rather than getting more money because I think.
Yeah, yeah, I see, I see what you mean.
I think a more accurate discussion and metric would be like how little money do you need to be happy? Like, oh, what are the total essentials? Because so often, like for me, I'd be like I need to make this amount of money. But let's say some tragedy befalls me.
Don't do it.
It's not gonna happen, Okay, But if it were, I think about that, because I need to think about like if I didn't, if I didn't have enough money to do X y Z.
The cloud did not sustain itself. If if you do not mutate or replicate.
Then yeah, it might feel a bit shit. But so long as you keep I think, so long as you keep an idea of like what is actually integrity, happiness, and then also what gives you benefits that you now feel as if you deserve that. If I had to look at it clearly for myself, I'd be like, so long as I can find a way to go home to Melbourne, so long as I can either live somewhere close to my friends or have a car to get
me there. So long as I had money to like buy a sandwich from the shop which is this place, the shop wine bars, this place that my friends live near that I love to go do decide. I think I think it's really important for anyone. Even if you decide that you need a million dollars as a paycheck
each here to make you happy. It's a fun exercise to figure out what is the absolute bare minimum moneyed because therefore, you know you might not get down to the bare minimum, but then you can fully appreciate the things that you use with your disposable income.
Parent And we also know happiness is fleeting anyway, so inspire for.
That we need to interrogate what happiness is before that question has any like real I guess there needs to be more parameters around that question.
Well, I think that most people recognize happiness to be a fleeting like gift, right, like a moment brought me happiness and it's going to go away, and another moment might bring me happiness. And they talk about key areas of life that do that, like marriage, kids, moving into a new place, going on a vacation with your friends. These are all things that can trigger happiness for you, and the average person isn't maintaining or sustaining and underlying
like I'm happy every day all the time. So I think what the question is kind of asking is what is it going to cost for you to maintain those areas of your life, like for you to have enough income to even facilitate dating, you know, because that's an expensive practice if you're doing it properly.
That's a real killer. Hope, I don't talk about it's.
A real killer. Similarly, you know, if you know that you need a little girls, trippy little Europe, you know, once once every couple of years, and what's that going to cost? And these days a pretty penny m.
Bit of a euro troop September me start saving doll I'm going into that blind. I don't have a budget.
Do you have savings? Yeah? Okay, good, but like but like, is this like your life savings or like the holiday savings?
Oh, I don't have any delineage.
Yeah, of course now all goes into one.
But no, I'm sure in the back of my mind, like I want to buy a jacket, but I'm like, I'm just gonna wait till I go to Europe, go to the Mater Stolls in London.
Yeah, part of a jacket. You're a sensible slender anywhere, right, You're not?
I am. Currently I'm spending a lot of money on food.
Yeah, but you love food?
Yeah, I know, just after going many years of like not buying it and fully home prepping. My meals were very scant.
Oh you're eating out? Oh yeah, what's going on?
I don't know.
I just like I'm in this moment in my life room prioritizing personal happiness because I'm single and I feel I'm unlearning a lot of like habits that actually brought
me a lot of anxiety. I need to figure it out, but essentially with that feeling of like I can't do this because tomorrow I've got to wake up at this time, like recalibrating how important that is to you, and like going into that blind and feeling all of this kind of anxiety that if I take away the anxiety, I'm going to be like X y Z, all of these negative emotions. When in actuality, if you get over the hump of feeling like, oh, I'm anxious to not be anxious,
then you become less anxious. This is a pipeline that I'm yet to put into words, but I feel it in my brain and I think it has to to do with this.
I like that. We'll talk about it more when you can figure it out.
Sounds good, so sweetie, to anyone listening to this podcast, my ass has everyone's pissed me off about my stuttering.
It's not very nice, guys. Okay, cut the tape. Cut the tape.
This is flex and frooms.
I feel like it's every second week we're hearing about how Nordic countries are a utopia of their own, the best place to be for various reasons of which I cannot get into because I've forgotten. But you know it's been said before, no need to fact check now. I found out recently, though, that in Denmark and other Nordic countries it is, and I quote common to let babies nap alone outdoors even when temperatures reach negative sixteen degrees Fahrenheim.
Now you might be asking, what's negative sixteen degrees Fahrenheim.
Sixteen more percent of ice?
I'll answer that and celsius or.
Maybe one hundred and sixty percent more ice.
Huh. Like it's negative twenty six degrees celsius. It's cold, it's very cold. And I was googling, like why that would happen? What for what reason would a baby need to sleep outside when it's that cold or ever? But apparently fresh air can induce a deep slumber and also decrease the exposure to germs.
Yeah, you get into a deep smer buck, that's how it starts. You stop, you start breathing less when you are phrasing.
Huh.
Yeah, it's like people who die on Mount Everest.
Oh my gosh, is that why when people are dying they start yawning heaps? Because I know that yawning happens, not just like when you're about to carck it, but if you're in an unsavory environment and you notice someone yawning, snap them awake, because yawning is what happens when you're not breathing regularly, not getting enough air. You're lunky do big. Yeah, So if you ask sleepy, breathe deeper.
Not if you've got the death right, although you across what that is.
I don't even get into it now.
Okay, you're listening to flex and Frooms on keda Flexi.
On Saturday, I went to a concert, a live show. It was at a venue called Golden Age. It is a cinema and a bar in Surrey Hills, which is Sydney's like CBD adjacent suburb. Yeah, very cool. And I went with my frand and someone that I know is playing their show. It's a very intimate little venue, like there's probably fits fifty people tops. It's very like fifty style sexy.
Moody, velvet mood light, warm tone, brownie ready, very decadent, indulgent and sexy. It's gorgeous, like a great first date place. So many a first date.
There, you have really into that, but we don't. So at this concert. The person's music is electronic experimental. Yeah, so as that translates people who are maybe not have very like specific genres that they like, like rock or kind of.
For the space, you'd expect it to be like jazzy, chill, like shoe gaze, maybe some slow alternative R and B, but definitely not a venue that you'd expect electronic music to be playing out.
No, okay, not at all. So I was looking at the stage and in front of the stage was a booth with the people in the booth their back was turned to the stage, and they're talking. It's for women i'd say in their mid forties or fifties, and they just gasbagging, having a good time. They clearly didn't know that there was going to be a gig on. The person who is the performer starts performing. So the performer, yeah, yeah, So the performer starts and we can see this as
the audience. But apparently the woman. The women in these booth would look up at him and be like, oh, like give him full greases.
Like he was disrupting their time, as if he wasn't the person everyone else in the venues there.
To see precisely. And then like two songs in, he looks down at them and he says, what was the look he gave me earlier? Like, why are we looking at me like you hate me?
Not breaking the fourth wall?
Yeah exactly, and they're kind of like what they're kind of laughing. Two more songs in and he goes, you guys look like you're enjoying it now again.
Yeah? Yeah, So at this point, is it a bit or like a or they've made a face that's like perhaps irritated him, and he's gone to address it again.
It's very hard for me to understand. Their performers are very funny guy. He's also kind of like a comedian, So it felt like a bit that maybe he wasn't landing with them and was coming across as aggressive, but I know that his tone is like sarcastic. He asked them, no, seriously, seriously, what what pissed you off so much? And then they get up and leave the venue, but before they leave the venue, there's a curtain that is pulled back for the stage. They pull the curtain.
So as to like closely curtain on him, Yeah, closer, like the show's over, the parties leaving. Yeah, yeah.
And it got me thinking, like, should have he not said anything? Like?
Wait, so what are you vibing from this scenario? Like your instinct is saying who's in the wrong, just from the vibe, not without any of the thinking and the contextualizing.
I think the venue could have played a bigger part.
Ah, Okay, you think he was in the wrong. You don't want to say because he's no friend. No, not at all, not.
At all, not at all. But I think a way to mitigate any of the bad feelings between the two of them would have been a better understanding of what than I was.
Yeah, but I'm not talking about what could have been done conceptually, Like in the space when you're seeing the performer having a bit of a moment with the guests, the guest having met with a performer, who do you think should have or could have managed that better?
Technically? I side with the performer, and I think them crossing the line and pulling the curtain was really kind of like a moment of I think they would regret it the next day. However, I do think as well that people obviously didn't understand who the person wasn't performing. They don't get their sense of humor. And to be asked twice like I thought you hated it is kind
of the position that they were sitting on. They were essentially on the stage, Like they're a step down from the stage, yeah, looking out to the audience and they're seeing everyone kind of like missing and laughing. So you probably would feel very targeted. You wouldn't want to stay there in case he's gonna like rip into a third time.
Yeah, because the way you've told the story, it makes it something the performance a bit of like didn't really handle that well because realistically, right, like I've been a DJ for how many years? If someone gives me a funny look on the stage, the last thing I would do is get a mic and call them out, because like I'm the entertainment, you know what I mean, Like it is my job to be of service. If someone doesn't like it, that's all good. They'll figure it out themselves.
So in that instance, like obviously I'm not a singer, so it's a lot more personal when someone's like looking at you and you're singing at them. But I would have thought that as a performer that kind of stuff happened. If it was a comedy show, I'd be like, oh, you're heckling, Like it's a two way thing, but I think that was strange. And then to bring it up a second and third time, I would feel because, like, can someone not make a face if they really don't
like it? Like, is that the kind of hostile? Is it that hostile that someone can't make a face without fear of the actual performer stopping the performance to be like, Hey, what was that you looked at me? Funny? Like that is so cook to me. I'd be like, okay, damn, let me go the bathroom so I can emote and they can come back.
Flex.
And I'm using this amazing platform we've been given to take a stand against something that's quite close to my heart. It's been something that I've carried for the bulk of my life. I feel like I've been on the front line in the trenches, battling on my own. But now it's time to share the burden. I am a night out. I want to be up busy making things happen at four am. I want to go to sleep at six and not get up till one, and that should be
my right. But unfortunately the Internet that we have been raised on is chock full of anti night our propaganda, and it's by design because the corporations want you working. They want you up at eight so you can be at work at nine to six so they can make money off your labor.
I never thought about it like that, par That's what I'm here for. And what has you thinking about this? Because you seem to have been comfortable with doing this for as long as I've known you.
Yeah, I'm still comfortable with it now, but I think I want to make others more comfortable so I can change the world and not have to answer emails from nine to five pm. It's a personal gripe. But we talked about it last week briefly, and somebody sent me in a message that I think is fascinating. They're a student who has delayed sleep phase disorder, which basically means that your sleep is delayed by two hours or more beyond what is considered to be an acceptable or conventional
sleep time. So I guess anything after midnight I guess would be considered delayed sleephase disorder. But I digress. They went to a sleep therapist who suggested a really absurd treatment for this because this person wants to try and figure out what they don't want to be a night out they want to leave, and I think that's okay. Don't want to leave the cult. They want to leave the cult night out. I get that. You know it's not for everyone. It's a lifestyle, baby says, I don't
know anyway. So the treatment is called chronotherapy, and it's supposed to reset your circadian rhythm. In one week. You choose what time you want to go to bed, and for this person, it's midnight. So you delay your bedtime each night and don't set an alarm and just sleep until you wake up. That is rogue. I don't know
if I could do that. For example, on the night one, bedtime is three am, night two, six am night, three nine am, night four midday night five three pm night six, six pm, night seven nine pm, and finally on night eight, bedtime is twelve am. And then you've allegedly reset your circadian rhythm to align with your stupid UNI or work now. Will I try this? No, because I'm quite happy with what I've got. But if this is the only solution and it actually works, it's not that bad of a process.
It only means that you can't live your life for a full week. M Imagine taking and your leave to reset your sleep schedule. What kind of lifestyle is that?
So it's like rebooting your internal computer something like that. Yeah, I'm skeptical of what the changing each day the sleep time. It seems so counterintuitive to any kind of health advice.
I think because you get so exhausted, But I think it's because you exhaust yourself that by the time you get to day eight, sleeping at the time that you've prescribed for yourself feels like a relief because I think, what,
or from my experience, what is delaying my sleep? Is this idea that I feel really tired at, like I don't know, nine, ten eleven, And then I pushed through because I want to stay up and read, and I want to stay up and make things, and I want to watch TikTok, And then I missed that schedule of tiredness, and then by the time it's five, I'm not that tired, and so there's no motivation to sleep anymore. But if I was truly exhausted at eight pm, I will sleep
at apm. I've done that before, but I'm just not Would you ever go to a sleep doctor out of curiosity now unless I needed it? But I don't need it because nothing's wrong with me and nothing's wrong with you. Night owl.
I like that.
I'm definitely becoming a night hours I get older. What time you go to bed In the past few nights, I did like one or two am.
That's big dog behavior.
Yeah, it's still still going to sleep twelve hours. I'll see you at one pm.
You have to it must Yeah.
I like that you're changing the conversation. I also want to make it clear to everybody that if you use Gmail, you can schedule sense. So I'm working till one thirty am. Sometimes I'm sending the email at eight am, so like a night our even more.
I'm sending it at once. I know what it is. If you don't catch me at eleven am, you know what it was. I'm out.
This is flex and frooms on da Flex.
I'm gonna story for you. This comes courtesy of the New York Times. As you know, I've got beef of the New York Times because I made it a very difficult for me to cancel my subscription.
And you still have been canceled. Nah.
I think this is one of the three articles.
Okay, so you have canceled.
Yeah.
Perfect.
The minute someone makes it harder for me to do something, I'm going in even harder because i know what you're trying to do to me, and I'm not going to take it exactly. This is a story from the New York Times, and essentially it says scientist essentially, yeah, because I'm not going to read off the page, Okay, I don't do that. Scientists have found that they can revive cells in dead pigs. It's a reversible form of death. Researchers who previously revived some brain cells in dead pigs
succeeded in repeating the process in more organs. So the pigs had been lying dead in a lab for an hour. No blood was circulating in their bodies, their hearts were still and their brain waves flat. Then a group of Yale scientists pumped a custom made solution into the pigs bodies with a device similar to a heart lung machine. What happened next adds questions for me.
I'm not going to read it. Astra hadn't looked at once.
That's ruggling. No, what happened next makes scientists reconsider the wall between life and death. So what this essentially means for humans is that perhaps we could get transplants of organs from pigs.
Oh what, That's not what I thought was gonna happen at all.
What do you think was gonna happen?
That if you could, if you could activate previously dead cells in different parts of your body, then you could do the same for a human. And really we only need our brain in our heart. So if the brain was gonna then you just like zap it and then it come back to life like the piglies.
Oh yeah, I see.
I don't want a pig's heart in my heart. What's wrong with mine?
I was thinking that as well, Like if I needed a organ transplant, I had to get it from a pig. I'm considering whether it's worth sticking around. You know what I mean?
I know exactly what you mean. It's that appealing, But you know next minutes what the article said at all? You just haven't read it the whole way through no no, no, So I guess into species transplants is what through me saying the article is seeing.
I think it's more they're going to use the testing it on pigs, and if they can figure out a solution and a technology that can bring say a heart back to life, they might be using it on a human. But essentially, if I die and ambout for a whole day, I don't think I'm keen to come back because something surely happens to your brain. Like imagine if you got revived at your completely different personality.
How would you know them? Yeah, but you bring me back. I don't know what you think. I'm not going anywhere.
You come back speaking Dutch, all the dormant Dutch, the drilling brain.
I'm down for that. All right, Well, that's fascinating. Let me know if there's an update for that. I feel like all of these scientific explorations are talking points for news articles and they don't come to life, Like where the havocrs? But where are they? Because we've been talking about those since the eighties and yet the cars are still on the road. I need to see the other cars at minimum.
But as I say, don't reinvent the wheel.
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