Why Missing an AC Deal Haunts You More Than the Repair

I got a call on a Tuesday in early August. Customer in a newer build out in Piedmont, second house from the corner on a cul-de-sac. He had not had any issue with his HVAC. Nothing was broken. The system was a builder-grade Goodman, ten years old, working fine. He said on the phone, I need somebody to come out and quote me a new system, today if you can.

I told him I had room about three in the afternoon. I drove out.

His system was running. I checked it. Coil was clean enough. Refrigerant was on. Static pressure was a little high because of the ductwork, but nothing emergency. Filter was fresh. I asked him what was wrong.

He said, nothing is wrong. I just need to upgrade.

I asked him why now.

He said, the neighbor got a new system last week. The one across the street. Variable speed something. Heat pump, I think. He said it is so quiet you cannot hear it run. He said his electric bill dropped already.

I asked what made him want the upgrade in particular.

He said, I do not want to be the last guy on the street with the loud unit.

I have been doing this for forty-five years. I know this customer. I have a name for it now that I did not have for the first thirty years of running into him. There is a body of research on what was happening at his kitchen table that day. A team of researchers, Andrew Przybylski and colleagues out of the UK and the Netherlands, published in 2013 a definitional paper on what they called fear of missing out, FOMO, as a measurable psychological construct. They built a scale to assess it. They tied it to social media use and to general life satisfaction.

Core line: "If you are a customer who recognizes yourself in this, the lesson is that the discomfort you are feeling when you look at your neighbor's new install is not actually about HVAC."

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So picture this, right? It's a blistering um 100 degree Tuesday in August.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Oh, brutal. Just the worst kind of heat.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Exactly. And there is this Oklahoma homeowner who is frantically ready to hand over $12,000.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Wow. $12,000.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

$12,000. And here is the kicker. He wants to spend it to fix an air conditioner that was uh working perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Wait, working perfectly? Why on earth would someone do that?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Well, because the most expensive, you know, catastrophic failures in your house, they usually aren't happening in your ductwork or your plumbing.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

They are actually happening right in your head. Have you ever been perfectly happy with something you own, like, I don't know, your phone, your car, your house?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Sure, totally.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Right. You love it. Until the exact moment you notice someone else got a shiny new version of that thing.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Oh, yeah. And suddenly your perfectly fine possession feels like completely intolerable.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yes. It's an incredibly common trap. Yeah. So welcome to today's deep dive. Our mission today is to really unpack the fascinating and also kind of baffling psychology behind that sudden, urgent dissatisfaction.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Because if we can figure out what is actually happening in our brains during those moments, then we can figure out how to stop what is, frankly, a super expensive cycle of anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

We absolutely can. And to do this, we are pulling from two very different worlds today.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

We really are. We've got this landmark 2013 psychological study that um basically defined the clinical mechanics of consumer behavior and social anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Which is fascinating on its own. But what makes it so much better is that we are pairing that academic research with some actual field notes.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Right from Dave Hortzall. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

A master HVAC technician with like 45 years of experience working in Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

It is honestly such a brilliant pairing. You wouldn't normally think, you know, let's turn to an HVAC repairman to teach us about profound human psychology. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

No, not at all. But I mean, sitting at thousands of kitchen tables discussing thousands of dollars in repairs. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

It gives you a total front row seat to behavioral economics in action.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Aaron Powell Exactly. Dave's driveway observations just perfectly mirror this clinical research. So to really understand the science here, we have to look at that specific real-world emergency that happened on that Tuesday in August. Aaron Powell Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

So let's set the scene. August in Oklahoma is basically the absolute peak of cooling season.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

So when an HVAC tech gets an urgent call that time of year from a totally frantic customer insisting someone come out to quote a brand new system today.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Aaron Ross Powell Like not tomorrow, but right now.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yeah, today. The immediate assumption is just catastrophic failure.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Aaron Powell has to be.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Dave drives out to this newer build in Piedmont. It's you know a nice house on a cul-de-sac, and he is fully expecting to find a seized compressor.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Trevor Burrus Or like a system that has just completely blown its refrigerant charge. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Exactly. But the physical reality of the situation is entirely different.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Aaron Ross Powell It always is in these stories. So Dave gets out there, he pulls out his gauges and he checks the system. And it is a 10-year-old builder-grade Goodman unit.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Aaron Powell Which, for anyone who doesn't speak HVAC, a builder-grade Goodman is essentially the reliable, no-frills workhorse of the industry. Aaron Powell Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

It's not winning any beauty contests.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

No, but it gets the job done. And the facts on the ground for this unit are undeniable. The coil is totally clean, their refrigerant levels are absolutely perfect, the filter is fresh.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Wait, so there's really nothing wrong with it.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Well, the notes mention the static pressure was a tiny bit high.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Okay. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 3:33

It just means the blower motor is working a little harder than optimal to push air through the ductwork.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Which usually just points to like a dense high-efficiency air filter that's restricting the airflow a bit.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

It certainly doesn't indicate a failing system. I mean, literally nothing is broken.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Aaron Ross Powell So Dave is staring at this machine that is doing exactly what it was designed to do. And he asks the customer, you know, what's wrong?

SPEAKER_01 4:00

And here is the twist.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah. The customer openly admits that nothing is wrong. He just needs an upgrade.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

He just needs it.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Right. So Dave pushes a little further. Like, why do you need a quote right this very second? And the true motivation just spills out The neighbor across the street? Yes. The neighbor across the street got a new HVAC system installed the week prior.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Aaron Ross Powell And it wasn't just any system, it was a variable speed heat pump.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Right, exactly. And again, to translate the jargon for everyone, a variable speed heat pump is essentially um the luxury sports car of home heating and air.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

It totally is.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Instead of just blasting on at full power and then shutting off, which is what normal units do, it runs constantly at very low, almost imperceptible speeds.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Aaron Powell It just kind of hums quietly in the background.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Right. And the neighbor had been bragging about it. He's telling this customer how you cannot even hear it run from the patio and you know how it's already slashing his electric bill.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

So the trigger for this homeowner's panic is entirely external.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

100%. The customer explicitly states to Dave, and this is a quote, I do not want to be the last guy on the street with the loud unit.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah. And it gets crazier. When Dave asks about a budget for the project, the customer doesn't reference his own finances at all.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

What does he say?

SPEAKER_00 5:16

He literally says, whatever the neighbor paid.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

You kidding?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Nope. He had already asked the neighbor the price, which was over twelve thousand dollars for a five-ton setup. And this customer is just ready to drop over 12 grand that very day simply to match his neighbor's driveway status.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Aaron Powell That is just wild when you hear it laid out like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Right. But um it is also deeply relatable, I'd say.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

It is exactly like having a perfectly good television. You love it, it works fine. But then you go over to your friend's house for the big game, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah, and they have that massive new screen.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Exactly. And suddenly when you go home, your TV looks like a postage stamp. It's this flaw you literally couldn't see yesterday. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

That analogy is spot on. A perfectly working machine becomes just emotionally unbearable in a matter of days. Yeah. And the answer to why that happens isn't in the ductwork. It actually brings us directly to the clinical definition of a very modern anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Aaron Powell Right. Which brings us to the science part of our deep dive. I really want to talk about this 2013 paper because this goes so much deeper than just, you know, keeping up with the Joneses.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

It really does. So a team of behavioral psychologists, this was Andrew Przybilski, Kumurayama, Cody Dehan, and Valerie Gladwell. Okay. They set out to study a term that was just becoming like a popular shorthand back then, FOMO, or the fear of missing out.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Aaron Powell Oh, right. Back in 2013, FOMO was mostly just a hashtag you use when you like couldn't make it to a party or something.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Exactly. But this team wanted to know if it was an actual measurable psychological construct. So they built the first validated empirical scale to assess it.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Aaron Powell They basically took it from a casual internet joke to rigorous science.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

But um how do you even measure a hashtag feeling in a lab?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Aaron Powell Well, they developed this self-report questionnaire with statements like, you know, I fear others have more rewarding experiences than me, or I get anxious when I don't know what my friends are up to. And by tracking these responses across thousands of people and correlating them with behavioral data, they found something huge.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Which was.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

They validated that FOMO isn't just some fleeting feeling of jealousy. It is actually a specific persistent form of social anxiety. Wow. Yeah. It's defined as the distress over the perception that other people are having rewarding experiences or owning things from which you are absent.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Aaron Powell So it's the distress of the absence itself.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Aaron Ross Powell Exactly. And the core insight from the paper is that this anxiety is closely linked to a deficit in your basic psychological needs.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Aaron Powell Wait, what does that mean practically?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Aaron Ross Powell It means when people feel a lack of competence, autonomy, or relatedness. So basically, when they feel insecure about their social standing or where they belong, they become highly susceptible to FOMO. And crucially, it's not really about wanting the thing itself. Aaron Ross Powell Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

The equipment is just a placeholder.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Trevor Burrus, Yes. The $12,000 heat pump is entirely symbolic. The anxiety does not live in that metal box outside the house.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Where does it live?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

The anxiety lives in the imagined relational gap between the customer and his neighbor.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Oh, that's such a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

The homeowner feels this sudden deficit in his social standing, and he just views the heat pump as the tool to bridge that gap.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Okay, but hold on. Let me push back a little bit here. Let me play devil's advocate. Sure, go for it. Isn't it possible that this is just, you know, genuine consumer interest? Uh I mean, maybe the neighbor's variable speed heat pump really is objectively better.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Oh, it definitely is better tech.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Right. It's quieter, it's highly energy efficient, it's gonna save the guy money on his electric bill. How do we know this customer is experiencing clinical social anxiety and not just like making a smart upgrade?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

It's a great question because it sounds totally rational on paper, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

But Dave's field notes provide the diagnostic proof that kind of shatters that logic.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Okay, what's the proof?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

The tell is the timeline and the trigger. This customer's current 10-year-old equipment was perfectly acceptable to him right up until the exact moment the comparison reference appeared. Oh. He wasn't conducting an energy audit of his home. He wasn't up late researching decibel levels of HVC units last month.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

The thought literally hadn't even crossed his mind until the neighbor got one.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Exactly. The distress was immediate, it was sudden, and it was triggered entirely by an external factor. That makes sense. And beyond the timeline, look at the budget.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Right. The 12 grand.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Yeah. A rational consumer doing a home improvement project analyzes their own needs. They look at their square footage, their personal finances, the return on investment.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Things that make sense for their house.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Exactly. This customer bypassed all of that. His budget was anchored not to his own needs, but exactly to what the neighbor paid.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

A budget based on whatever the guy across the street spent is a relational budget. It is not a mechanical one.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

It's totally relational.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Which proves the primary motivation is closing the social gap, not improving the airflow.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

It is just a fascinating illusion. The physical distress the guy feels is incredibly real to him.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Very real.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

But the source of that distress is this imagined gap he just constructed the moment he looked across the cul-de-sac.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

So, okay, if the root cause is this imagined social gap rather than a mechanical failure, what actually happens if the customer just gives in?

SPEAKER_01 10:37

What if he just buys it?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah. What if he just writes a check and gets the expensive machine?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Well, that brings us to the absolute most dangerous part of this psychological loop. And it's really why understanding this is so critical for our own wallets.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Because Dave, sitting there on the kitchen counter with his clipboard, he has a really easy path in front of him.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Oh, the easiest path. The transaction is completely clean. The customer has the cash and is practically begging Dave to take it.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Right. As a business owner, the simplest thing in the world is to just write up the ticket, order the luxury unit, make your massive profit, and drive away.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

And honestly, in many sales-driven industries, that is exactly what happens every single day.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

But the psychological reality from Przebielski's research explains why taking that easy path is actually a massive trap for the consumer.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Why is it a trap?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Because acquiring the object almost never relieves FOMO permanently.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Ah, so the relief is just a mirage.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Totally temporary. It's just a brief hit of dopamine from closing that perceived social gap. If Dave sells that unit without surfacing the actual psychological pattern, he turns the customer into a serial upgrader.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

A serial upgrader? That sounds expensive.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Very the researchers emphasize a critical phrase here. The acquisition trains the anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Wait, trains the anxiety. What does that mean in practice?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Think about the psychological mechanics. If the customer buys the heat pump, his brain learns a really dangerous lesson. It learns that the correct way to soothe status anxiety is by spending money to match a peer.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

So for maybe three months he feels secure, but the baseline shifts. Six months later, a different neighbor gets a brand new, I don't know, smart home security system.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Or luxury SUV. Or they remodel their kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Exactly. And the cycle refires. The anxiety just detaches from the heat pump and instantly relocates to the next comparison.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

The gap just moves.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yes. The neighbor is now permanently installed in the customer's internal decision-making process.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Wow. Here is where it gets really interesting. Because what you're describing, buying the heat pump to cure FOMO, it is exactly like drinking salt water when you're incredibly thirsty.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Oh, that's a perfect analogy. The mechanism is identical.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Right. Because it feels like a solution as it goes down. For about two seconds, you're like, ah, finally hydration.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

But then it hits your system.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Exactly. The salt draws the water out of your cells, and it actually guarantees you're going to be even thirstier tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

It actively makes the underlying condition worse while pretending to be the cure.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Which leaves both the HVAC tech and the consumer in a really tough spot.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

It does.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Because if closing the sale just puts the customer on this endless treadmill of salt water, but outright refusing the sale just makes them angry.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

And sends them straight to a competitor who will take their 12 grand.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Right. So how do you actually intervene? How do you break a cycle that is that powerful?

SPEAKER_01 13:34

This is where Dave's 45 years of driveway wisdom totally outshines any standard corporate sales manual.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

What does he do?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

His intervention is just brilliantly simple. He doesn't argue with the customer about airflow or efficiency.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

That wouldn't work anyway.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Exactly. Instead, he just slows down the interaction. He lets the FOMO breathe.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

He asks what we can call the slow questions.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yes, the slow questions. He subtly shifts the conversation away from the equipment and toward the customer's internal experience.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

So instead of writing the quote, Dave asks, How long has this been bothering you? Like how often did the existing system bother you before you saw the neighbors install?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

And that forces the customer to pause. He actually thinks about his lived experience over the past summer and he admits, you know, it was fine. I literally never thought about it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

And then Dave follows up with, Okay, well, how much have you been thinking about it in the last week?

SPEAKER_01 14:29

And the customer actually laughs because he realizes the absurdity of it. He says, Every time I walk out the front door, that is the moment of realization. It really is. Dave basically completes the psychological diagnostic right there by making the invisible gap visible.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

It completely breaks the spell. The customer realizes that the old system was doing its job perfectly on Monday, but felt unbearable by Friday solely because he looked across the street.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

The reference point changed, not the reality of the air conditioner.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Exactly. And Dave is incredibly upfront. He tells the customer, look, I can sell you the unit today, happy to do it. But if you were buying it because of the guy across the street, you were just going to be buying another upgrade in six months for the exact same reason.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Dave is naming the placeholder. He's showing the homeowner that the neighbor's driveway is driving the bus.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

And the outcome of that conversation is incredible. Because Dave asks those slow questions. The customer decides to just think about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

He doesn't buy the unit that day.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Nope. Fast forward three months to November, the cold snap is coming to Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

And the customer calls Dave back. You might think, okay, he finally caved. He wants the $12,000 heat pump for winter.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

But he doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

He doesn't. Yeah. He just asks for a basic standard tune-up on his existing 10-year-old system.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

That is a powerful testament to how fleeting this specific type of status anxiety really is once you interrupt the brain's pattern matching.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Totally. The customer actually confessed to Dave that he spent a few weeks in September watching the neighbor's new unit from his window.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Just listening hard for how quiet it was.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Exactly. But eventually, life happened. He simply stopped actively looking for the comparison.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

And because his brain stopped searching for the gap, he stopped being able to hear the difference.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

The fancy new unit across the street became entirely invisible to him within eight weeks. And that 10-year-old Goodman system, the one that felt like an absolute twelve thousand dollar emergency in August, it is now on year 12 and running perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

That is amazing. The comparison faded simply because he stopped actively participating in the imagined gap.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

When the psychological need for status settled down, the mechanical need for a new air conditioner vanished right along with it.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

So what does this all mean for you listening right now?

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yeah. How do we apply this?

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Because you probably aren't sitting at your kitchen table agonizing over a five-ton heat pump in the Oklahoma heat.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

But this exact same psychological mechanism is operating in your life right now. I mean, think about the last time you opened Instagram or walked through a friend's newly renovated house.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Right. It's the exact same scale Przebilski's team measure, just applied to different placeholders.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Exactly. So the next time you feel an urgent, sudden need to rip out your perfectly functional countertops because you saw an influencer's kitchen island.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Or that sudden urge to finance a new car right after your coworker does.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yes. Force yourself to ask Dave Slow questions.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

It is honestly the most effective tool for self-diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Just ask yourself, how long has this actually been bothering me? Like, was I perfectly happy cooking in this kitchen last week?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Did my phone feel super fast and sleek right up until I saw my friend unbox the newest model yesterday?

SPEAKER_00 17:44

If the answer is yes, then you know what you are dealing with. You are not dealing with a functional failure of your possessions. You are dealing with an imagined relational gap.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Recognizing the true source of those sudden cravings is the ultimate shortcut to making rational decisions.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

It really is.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

It saves your peace of mind, it guards you against predatory marketing, and it will absolutely save your wallet. You don't have to step onto that acquisition treadmill.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

So if we synthesize all of this, you know, the rigorous clinical scale built by Przabilski's research team and the 45 years of kitchen table wisdom from Dave Hartzall, the main takeaway is profoundly clarifying.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

It really boils down to one thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

FOMO is never really information about the object.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

No. It's not about the tech specs of the car or the square footage of the house.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Or the decibel rating of the AC upgrade. It is always, fundamentally, information about your relationship to the people around you.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

The discomfort you feel when you're staring at someone else's shiny new thing isn't a mechanical reality. It is a gap living entirely in your own head.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Exactly. And the real work isn't in spending thousands of dollars to buy equipment to fill that gap. The work is in noticing the pattern your brain is running.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

So you can consciously step off the treadmill because drinking the salt water will never ever cure the thirst.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Which leaves us with a final, perhaps slightly uncomfortable thought for you to mull over as you go about your day. Ooh, this is a good one. We've seen the mechanics of how a sudden burning desire for a $12,000 piece of equipment can be completely programmed into a person's brain just by glancing at a neighbor's driveway.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Just a glance.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

So if our desires can be hijacked that easily by mere proximity, it makes you wonder.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

How many of our much larger, supposedly deeply held life goals, like the specific high stress career tracks we pursue, the massive houses we think we need to be happy, the arbitrary age milestones we are rushing to hit?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

How many of those are actually just our own invisible versions of the neighbor's heat pump?

SPEAKER_01 19:48

That is a fascinating and kind of terrifying question to sit with.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

So until next time, if you find yourself suddenly hating something you loved yesterday, just slow down and let the FOMO breathe.