Happy Holidays Upgrade listeners.

We're taking a break for the next two weeks to relax and enjoy the holiday season.

But fear not, we'll be bringing you new episodes in the new year.

For now, please enjoy this recast.

Hello, and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcast from the team at LifeHacker, where we help you improve your life one week at a time. I'm Melissa Kirsch, editor-in-chief of LifeHacker.

And I'm Alice Bradley, Deputy Editor of Lifehacker. And today we're talking about getting over yourself.

Our guest is author and psychiatrist Mark Epstein,

whose books include Thoughts Without a Thinker and Going to Pieces Without Falling

Apart.

His latest book, Advice Not Given, uses Buddhism's noble eightfold path as a roadmap for spiritual and psychological growth.

Mark found that both Buddhism and psychotherapy come to the same conclusion.

When we give the ego free reign, we suffer.

But when the ego learns to let go, we're free.

Mark, welcome to the upgrade.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Let's start by having you tell us a little bit about your background.

I had the unusual experience of discovering Buddhism before I knew very much about anything else.

Basically, when I was a freshman in college, I took an introduction to world religion class that I had no intention of taking, but I met a nice girl who was taking it, and I thought, okay, I'll go take the class.

And the stuff about Buddhism, like, hit a chord in me that I didn't know was there. I remember I read something in that first class. The mind is anxious.

It flaps like a fish thrown on dry ground, you know, trembling all day.

I was like, oh, they're talking about me.

And then I, as I learned more about Western psychology, Western psychiatry,

...