247. The Second Arrow: Ending the Extra Suffering You Create

Pain shows up on its own schedule; suffering often arrives by invitation. We explore the “second arrow” mindset—an old teaching with fresh power—that separates life’s unavoidable hits from the self-inflicted loops that follow. I walk through why the first arrow is a fixed cost of being human and how the second arrow quietly taxes your confidence, focus, and momentum when you need them most.

Across real moments like missed promotions, ghosted texts, and blown deadlines, we map the difference between remembering and reliving. You’ll learn the concept of memory liabilities—ruminations that drain your energy—and memory dividends—lessons that compound into better systems and faster recovery. I share a simple four-step method to catch the second arrow in real time: name it, pause the mental movie, ask if it helps or hurts, and extract the lesson with one small system change. Think midweek checkpoints, earlier communication, or clear reminders that turn setbacks into training data.

We also talk identity and compassion. Past you didn’t know what current you knows. That perspective matters because the people who seem to “always win” still get hit by life; they just refuse to keep stabbing themselves afterward. The rule we build together is direct and doable: suffer once. Feel the first arrow fully, learn quickly, then move on lighter and more confident. If the loop tries to restart, run the steps again and shorten it with practice.

Ready to stop shooting the second arrow and start banking memory dividends? Follow the show, share this with someone stuck in a mental replay, and leave a quick review to tell me what system you’ll try this week.

Chapters

• 0:00 New Year, New You Mindset
• 2:05 The Buddha’s Second Arrow Story
• 4:10 First Arrow Pain vs Second Arrow Suffering
• 7:00 Memory Liabilities And Dividends
• 9:40 Real-Life Examples: Work And Dating
• 12:30 The Loop That Kills Confidence
• 15:20 The Rule: Suffer Once
• 17:10 Catching The Arrow In Real Time
• 20:10 Practical Systems To Prevent Replays

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

What is up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Mindset Cafe Podcast. It's your boy Devin Gonzalez. And today I wanted to break down something that I've kind of noticed recently. Um, and I think that we all do it or have done it, you know, at some point. And as the year ends, and we're about to get into New Year's resolutions, I think this is an important part to realize that you're not the old version of you, and you are a newer version of you, and you can always be a newer version. But I want you to realize that life is gonna hit you with things that you didn't ask for at times that are not inconvenient, that are inconvenient, times that are not perfect, right? And those moments sting, and they're supposed to. They're the unexpected, they're the in uncontrollable, that's life. The second part of that, though, is that's not real suffering. I mean, yes, there is suffering in that, but I think a lot of times with what we're gonna talk about today, there's a second part to it, and that's where truly one suffers. Um, and I want to give you some tools, tips, and tricks to kind of get over that and and re-evaluate it and reshift it in your mindset. And I think the best way to do that is by breaking down where this whole thought process came from, which was an ancient teaching of the second arrow, um, from Buddha to one of his students. And so we can break it down into practical steps, and I'll kind of explain the story in a second, and then you know, hopefully, you guys get to take and extract a lesson from it. Um, and the story of the second arrow essentially the purpose of it is that I think a lot of times we we are the second arrow, right? And so the story goes, Buddha was trying to teach a lesson to one of his students, and he said, If I shoot you with an arrow, does it hurt? And the student responded, Well, yeah, it it's gonna hurt, you know, that would kind of that would suck a little bit if you shot me with an arrow. And so he says, Okay, the first arrow arrow would hurt. Um, and you can't avoid that first arrow. He said, The second arrow, if I shot you in the same spot after the first arrow, would that hurt? And he said, Yes. He said, The first arrow is life, right? So the first arrow is it's gonna hurt. Now, the second arrow, though, is you, and that's that's your suffering, right? The first arrow is basically a fixed cost, it is what is gonna happen is inevitable, and we're gonna have our downsides, we're gonna have our bad days, we're gonna have our bad moments, our bad seasons, but you only have to suffer once, and that's where that second arrow comes in, is realizing that the first arrow being life, which you didn't ask for, which could be you know failure, it could be embarrassment, it can be rejection, it could be loss, it hurts, and that's unavoidable. But that second arrow, which is you, that's the replay, that's the overthinking, that's the shame, that's the version where you beat yourself up for days, weeks, months, maybe even years. And while you can't dodge that first arrow, you can stop the second arrow from even being fired, even being shot. And so I want by the end of this for you to make it a rule that you're only gonna suffer once. I'm not gonna, I want your mindset to be, I'm not gonna relive this moment, I'm not gonna let it you know play in a loop in my head. I'm not gonna judge the version of me who didn't know what I didn't know and I didn't know any better. Right? That's why this happened. Or kind of letting the lesson stay in a sense, and letting it you know be a part of you. I want you to be able to let that self-attack essentially go. You I want you to think of it as you want memory dividends, like if you have stocks, right? You get paid dividends on your stocks. I don't want it to be where you have these memory liabilities and they're only harming you or they're only a risk to you. So breaking that down, the first arrow, you know, things happen and they happen in in ways and times that are probably the worst timing, and are you know, you're not predicting it. It's you know, everything's already you know tough, you're already going through the struggles, and then life hits you with another curveball. Um, and I believe honestly, that's when they say you're forged by the fire, that is the fire. That is you getting the opportunity to grow to become the next version of you. Without that struggle, without those first arrows, you wouldn't adapt and learn new skills, you wouldn't grow to become who you are today. Think about you know, any struggle that you've overcome and looking back on it, it doesn't seem so bad because you know how to overcome it. So if that same thing happened again, you would know essentially what to do to fix the problem faster or even avoid the problem as you see it coming. Realizing that there is still suffering in the first arrow, it still does sting when things happen when they're not anticipated. That's being human, right? I'm not saying that you can't suffer, you can't, you know, feel the pain, like that's not weakness, it's just hurt, right? It's just stress, it's just those things. But or actually, you know, I'll I'll give you an example. Let's say you're trying to get a job promotion, and then all of a sudden the promotion doesn't go your way. That's the first arrow. Like you don't have any control over if your boss gives you the promotion or not, that's uncontrollable. Let's say if you're dating, right? You send a text and all of a sudden or a message, and then you get ghosted. Again, unavoidable. So I want you to realize that you can't mindset your way out of reality. The first arrow is gonna hurt, it's gonna suck, it's gonna sting, and that's a part of life. That's okay, that's the fixed cost of life. I like to kind of rephrase back to you know a 50 cent song. It's like there sunshine wouldn't be so great if there wasn't rain. Right? There, you can't appreciate something if there's not the polar opposite. So you wouldn't you wouldn't feel the success, you wouldn't feel the pride, if you wouldn't feel the achievement if there wasn't the failures, if there wasn't the struggle, if there wasn't the rejections, right? So you have to realize that the cost of feeling those moments that are so valuable, well, you have to pay the toll at some point of the polar opposite. But that second, the second arrow, the self self-inflicted essentially suffering, that's when you're letting that mental replay happen. That's when you're overthinking, you know, I didn't get the promotion. Why didn't I get the promotion? And you're living in this state of just a loop of just replaying the same thing. It happened, it went away. That there's nothing you could do about it, right? But you just thinking about it doesn't do you any good. And now you're just suffering and overthinking, and you're it starts to affect your confidence, it starts to affect other aspects of you to allow you to move the needle forward, and your your fear of being judged or your fear of rejection because of the past event, that's what you know, suffering in sense of like personal growth and and professional growth really is. You have to realize that the first arrow hits once, but that second arrow hits a thousand times, and you're the one pulling the bow back and shooting it. The event happened one time. You got denied, you got ghosted, you got whatever. That happened one time. But you replaying it in your mind and thinking about it is happening on a loop, time after time after time after time, and you're feeling that same wave of emotions and same um self-doubt and same, you know, whatever it may be for you, at for whatever reason it may, or whatever feelings or emotions have happened when it actually happened, you're replaying that. And so with that, you have to realize that there's mental liabilities and mental and or memory liabilities and memory dividends. Just like you know, you have assets and you have liabilities, you know, assets being good things that are you know increasing value, you know, are not a risk to you or your finances. Well, memory, same thing. You have things that are liabilities that are at a risk to you that you don't need to have, essentially. You want things that are going to replay and pay dividends and keep you growing in the way that you're supposed to be growing. So the memory liabilities, for example, like things that you're replaying that drain your confidence, drain your energy, and even your self-trust potentially of you accomplishing what you want you set out to accomplish. But the memory dividends, in another sense, is almost one of like my core values. I would say is a memory dividend style aspect. Hopefully, this makes it make sense. But you extract the lesson, in that you can benefit from forever. So something didn't go well. Well, why didn't it go well? What could I have what could I have done better? And I'm gonna do that next time. You learn the lesson, and now you are improved, you're starting to grow into a new version of you, and so that is a dividend of you know, having the memory liabilities or dividends. Um realizing that you have the option, and you have the option as of right now, as of listening to this, that you can choose to only suffer once, right? You you have can you don't have control of that first arrow, so you're gonna end up suffering, but you can refuse to shoot the second arrow, and maybe the second arrow does get shot. You have a choice at some point to stop shooting the arrow and stop reliving and re-looping that whole train of events that's happening. So I want you to make it a rule, a self-rule, essentially, that I'm not going to relive this moment on a loop. I'm not going to judge the version of me who didn't know better, that didn't know how to do that, or didn't know the necessary things that now I do know. Because that was a different version of me. Feel it fully once, right? Learn from it and then let it go. But to give you a practical tool that you can actually implement this with, here's how you catch the second arrow almost in real time. It's not gonna, it might be the second arrow, it might be the 20th arrow, but it gets better as you you practice this, right? So the first time it might be the you know, 22nd arrow, and then all of a sudden it's the 12th arrow, and then it's the second arrow, right? It gets better just like any skill, any anything that you do in life. Working out's not super easy the first time, but you keep working out, you get stronger, so forth. This memory skill also works the same. So, step one, you have to name it, right? The second arrow has to have a label on it, has to have a meaning to it, has to have a essentially title. The second part is to pause the movie. Notice that you're replaying it, you're not reliving it. So I'll say that again. I want you to pause the movie that's playing on in your head because you're replaying it, and you need to know that you're not reliving it. It's not happening right now, it already happened. The next part is once you realize that and you can stop that memory loop, is ask is this helping me or is it hurting me again? Is this making me feel that wave of emotions again? Is this starting to make me doubt myself? And then lastly, when you do answer that, don't just give a self um a service-level answer, right? Understand why it's making you feel like that. Extract the lesson. You don't need to extend the sentence that you're putting on yourself, almost like jail time. You extract the lesson, you don't extend your sentence for for whatever happened that you had no control over, and realize and think about what would you do differently? What would you do next time? What's a a simple process that if that happened, I would do? How would I counteract this? For example, let's say you missed a deadline. Next time, instead of being, you know, you you miss a deadline, whatever happens, happens, and then all of a sudden you're embarrassed, you're you know, X, Y, and Z. Realize it, stop the loop, and be like, okay, next time I'm gonna maybe set a midweek checkpoint, a calendar notification on my phone. Um, I'm gonna make sure that I I communicate earlier if I'm running late. I'm you know, there's certain things that you can do to make sure that if you so that you won't miss the deadline, or that you essentially, even if you are gonna miss a deadline, how would you improve the you know, missing it? Communicate with the person that you're gonna be running a day late on the project. Communicate that you're you know running a little bit late to the meeting. And then another part I want you to realize is that since that is the old you right, that is a different version of you. That was a version of you that whatever the first arrow had hit didn't know the first arrow was coming, didn't know that the first arrow was even there or what it was, but that's not the version of you now. Now you know that first arrow, now you know what happens, now you know the outcome, the feelings, the whatever. And so you have to have some compassion for that version of you and not put so much blame on yourself or be so hard on yourself because that does nothing for you moving forward. It has a ripple effect. I know you've heard me say that multiple times, a ripple effect, but the ripple effect is that second arrow, and it could be positive, it could be negative, right? You basically not shooting the second arrow has a positive ripple effect. You shooting the second arrow and the 22nd arrow and the you know 200th arrow, that has a negative ripple effect, right? Let's say, for example, your confidence. You're beating yourself up is gonna be taking more time and more energy away from what you need to do to move the needle forward, and so now you're not gonna be as confident the next time you need to do that thing, right? Or send the text, or you know, ask a girl out or a guy out. Um let's say, for example, actually, I want you to to realize that you know the people who win long term aren't the ones who never get hit by that first arrow. That's honestly something for you to realize that sometimes we see people succeeding or doing better than us, and we think we're the only ones being shot with those those first arrows, and that's just not the case. The ones that are succeeding long term or just seems like they're always winning, they're the ones that are not shooting the second arrow, and they're not stabbing themselves afterwards when they get shot with the first arrow, they're not reliving it, replaying it in their mind. So I just want you to take you know, find a little takeaway is life's gonna hit you, right? Life's gonna shoot that first arrow. That's honestly, I can probably guarantee you that. At some point or another, if you haven't been hit by a curveball, probably gonna hit by a curveball. But that doesn't mean you don't step back up to the plate. That doesn't mean that just because you got hit by the first arrow, there's gonna be a second arrow of the same thing. The second arrow is you, it's your choice. Shoot it, don't shoot it, is on you. That's controllable. So take the lesson, drop the set the second arrow, drop the weapon, and walk forward. Walk forward lighter, walk forward more confident. You now got to experience it and be grateful that you experienced it because now you have a lesson and you have something else that other people don't have. Right? I mean, one of the other sayings that you know I realized this with business, and it was like a self-reflective thought of common sense is only common to the person that knows it. Well, now you experiencing that second arrow, if it gets shot again, it's common sense on what to do. But someone else that hasn't been hit by that first arrow doesn't have that common sense. So hopefully, I hope this helped. I wanted to kind of take a little bit of a different approach. I know that life life is hard sometimes, right? And I just want you to know that whatever you're going through, other people are going through it too, or have gone through it. So there's no point in you beating yourself up over it because that doesn't do anything for you moving forward. You have to start believing yourself, realize that you're replaying something in your head that was of a different version of yourself, and move forward. You got this. Just like I talked about a couple episodes ago, sometimes it's okay to borrow the confidence and the and the belief others are instilling in you because they may see something that you're not seeing within yourself. But the same thing for this: something happens to you, you get shot with that first arrow, and other people are telling you it's okay and telling you, giving you um almost self-confidence boosters. Realize that it's probably genuine. They're not just saying it to make you feel better. Realize that and then take it in, and you need to stop the replay and move forward. But if you guys ever need me, I'm here for you guys. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. If you guys need anything, send me a DM. But otherwise, I'll see you guys on the next one.