Damaged car resembles me

Amjed: 0:01

My dad bought my first car for me, I believe for $600. And it was blue and old and cheap and had a manual transmission or a stick that was very difficult to shift the gears and I drove that thing around everywhere, had a lot of fun with it too, and I still remember that car as if I had it last year and in a lot of ways that car was like me, imperfect, but with purpose. Hi, this is Amjad, a simple, beautifully broken man living in a complex world. Join me as I navigate the dark and bright spots of life, sharing vulnerably and reflecting deeply along the way. May you find some benefit here that is through me, not from me. I must warn you to enter at your own risk, for in this room my humanity is showing. Welcome my fellow humans to episode 45 of my humanity is showing. And I had a funny thought. You know I talk about. You know, enter in your own risk, for in this room my humanity is showing. And I was thinking what if I opened up with? This is me still experimenting and I feel like I haven't hit my sweet spot yet with the opening, the intro here. But what if I started with, like come on in, or something really goofy like that. Anyway, I'm accused constantly of dad jokes, so I don't know how well that would go over. So quick announcement that I've been meaning to make for a few episodes now and keep forgetting and that, and maybe I don't know, maybe I did and I don't even remember having talked about it. But you know, recently my hosting site introduced an AI feature and so it actually transcribes the episode and I'm able to put the transcript on there. I have not been editing the transcription at all, so it might look really goofy and there may be things that make absolutely no sense, but at least there's something searchable there. And if you wanna follow along with the written transcript and say that's not what he just said, you can do that. Or you know, for me I keep asking myself the question like wait, did I have already talked about that? And you know I'm hoping to eventually have all the transcripts for all the episodes so I can just search and say, okay, yeah, I did, it's right there. I knew I'd said that somewhere, but we're not there yet. So, yeah, just wanted to mention the transcripts.

Amjed: 2:51

And what's funny about the AI is it also does like a description and the description is like too good. It's too good Chat GPT level, like just too good. And I read that and it says, you know, like, well, in this episode we'll be talking about amazing things and welcome and join me as we do that. And I'm thinking, no, that's not, that doesn't even sound real. It's just too good. And you know, maybe that's how people get more listeners. I don't know, they attract people. They read the little description and say, wow, that sounds really cool. I want to click on that. Yeah, I'm not really. This is meant to be authentic and real and so that's what you're gonna get. I might get fewer listeners this way. So I do.

Amjed: 3:40

I usually delete the whole thing out. I might save a sentence if I'm like, oh, I like that sentence, but I delete the whole thing out and I just type a sentence or two that describes the episode, because I feel like what's the point of Putting it all in the description? Then, if you read it all, then why would you even listen to it? You know, if you could read it in like a 10-second description, then why would you listen to some guy blathering on for 30 minutes? But anyway, I don't know, that's just me. So I just try to keep it really really simple and short. So those are my announcements for today. I don't know why, that's like a new habit. I'm starting with announcements, so what I wanted to talk about and we'll see where this goes.

Amjed: 4:24

So my last episode, in case you haven't caught it yet, it. It was a very interesting experience in that I had an. I had this visual that just suddenly appeared in my head right as I was started talking and I Just described. I can just follow that Analogy, metaphor, allegory, whatever you want to call it. I just followed that through the episode and it was definitely a different experience for me because I'm I do that a little bit. I try and, like I said, I don't script and I don't edit.

Amjed: 5:04

So much of what I share in the in this podcast is stream of consciousness, but sometimes I have a general idea like oh, I could tell I could share about this thing that happened or that thing that happened, but the last episode was like really way out there. So I'm still recuperating from that I. That was a very different experience and so I figure people will listen to it and either hate it, say what in the world, like that guy was just all over the map, or they might say that that was really interesting to watch Inter or listening, interesting to listen to just this kind of weird unveiling of a thought, an undiscovered thought. So yeah, I just had another analogy. It was kind of it's like opening a Chest that had been buried for many, many centuries and opening it and saying, oh, what's inside here, and Suddenly I feel like a goonie, one of the goonies.

Amjed: 6:04

So for today's episode, what I thought there's actually was supposed to be last times but I went off on that weird tangent was I was driving home the other day and I Pulled up behind this car that was driving in front of me and I you know we were at a red light, so I was able to get a picture of the car without looking, of course, but I just quickly flashed a faster shot. So I'm looking at it now, but it is. It was a very interesting car. So it's a small sedan and the back of the car was like completely bashed in, like it looked like it had been attacked by the Hulk. The the trunk Door was like smashed, sitting inside the trunk, the back bumper gone, a Big chunk of the back Left side, driver side like just smashed in, the back windshield gone. I mean, it's like this car was just I Mean, like I said, it looked like it had been it, you know attacked by Some, you know, like really angry creature in the back, and I shouldn't laugh.

Amjed: 7:23

I mean I just I felt terrible, for when I saw the car I thought, gosh, I can't believe they're actually driving that. Why would someone drive that car? And as I pulled up beside this person, they just seem, you know, content as all can be, and I mean I know that this is like reading a lot into, but the person just seemed content and was Driving along, didn't, you know, didn't have this like angry look on their face or anything, or frustrated, like oh my gosh, I can't believe this happened to my car. Maybe it's been like that for a while, maybe it's their only form of transportation, maybe they can't afford to get it fixed. I mean, there's so many things, so many maybes in there, right, but just what kept going through my head was they didn't Get rid of it. They're still driving this car that just looks awful and damaged and like it should be totaled and taken to the Junkyard and traded in. Yet they're driving it and it's still.

Amjed: 8:30

It seemed to drive smooth, at least from the outside. And you know, there wasn't. It wasn't like Wobbling and falling apart, it seemed to be driving fine and getting them from point A to point B, which is the point of a car. And In my mind, as I'm thinking this question of like gosh, I can't believe, or this thought of I can't believe they actually kept the car and they're driving it and using it. And then I somehow that created an analogy in me and it was this visual of me and I don't. This is gonna sound really strange and if this is your first episode, I don't blame you, but if you're actually coming back to keep hearing this stuff, I don't know. But there I go, using negative self-talk again. But this may sound very unusual, but I somehow related to that car, like personally not physically, excuse me, hiccup, not physically, but personally Like there was a part of me that really felt like I could be that car.

Amjed: 9:53

You know, and I know a couple episodes ago I shared about the Kintsugi pottery and I actually changed my intro. So if you listen to some older intros versus the newer intros, you'll notice that in the beginning I added the word beautifully broken and that was at the encouragement of a, the friend of mine who inspired the Kintsugi pottery episode and the one where, you know, I think I said I'm perfectly imperfect or beautifully broken I can't remember what terminology I used, but I think it was beautifully broken. But the you know that concept. So I added that in there, because my hope for this podcast and all these episodes that I've been recording is that it's a positive message.

Amjed: 10:41

That's my biggest fear, actually, with this podcast. My fear is that I'll share. I'll share the latest struggles, I'll share what's going on, my, you know, upward movement, backward movement, like when I had the meltdown the other day I shared that a few weeks ago or a couple of weeks ago, when I, you know, am struggling with negative self-talk or I'm struggling with FOMO, and there's all these struggles that I'm going through and I'm being as vulnerable as I can be trying to protect some boundaries. But my fear is that at the end it'll all, it will land negatively, and that is not my intent. My intent is to share a message of hope to say look at me, I'm broken, I'm having all kinds of issues, I have good days, I have bad days, but I'm a million times better than I was 10, 15 years ago and I am no longer pursuing harming myself or planning my next suicide attempt or, you know, just having meltdown after meltdown after meltdown I, you know not living in a state of complete emotional destruction like I was, or in a state of complete depression.

Amjed: 12:12

Something changed in this last 10, 15 years and some of it I'm familiar with or I'm aware of that. Okay, this changed, this changed. Other things I may not be as aware of, and we're discovering it together, and, you know, some things have not gotten better, but overall, there's this improvement and so my hope here I'm using the word hope is to be a message of hope. It sounds redundant, but that's the plan. The plan is to come and share all my brokenness but, at the end of the day, say it's, you know, but it's okay because it's not ruling my life in a way that it wasn't before and there's a path forward, I can see the light ahead and it's like I'm traveling.

Amjed: 13:05

You know, I lived most of my life in this really dark, dark, dark tunnel, full of fog, and maybe not even fog, but it might be in smog or in smoke, and I spent a good chunk of my life in that state, just this funk of depression and loneliness and fear and anger and frustration and resentment and anxiety, insecurity and just drowning in that, in that sea of black ink and the lights are glorious. Over the last 10, 15 years I feel like I have traveled to the edge of that tunnel and the smoke has largely cleared. That smoke, smog, fog, whatever that is, has largely cleared. I'm not completely out of the tunnel yet and I may never make it all the way out, but I'm at the part where I can see a lot of the light coming in from the other end and no, it's not a train, but I can see dad joke number 16 of the day, but I can see the light coming in through the tunnel To the point where I'm lit, I'm well lit, I can actually see myself. Now, if I turn around and look back, I may not be able to see that far back Because it's still dark back there, but I feel like I've made it so much farther and that's the thing I'm hoping to share. I'm trying to share in this, this thing.

Amjed: 14:35

So, getting back to this car, you know, I see this broken, damaged, beat-up car and I think, literally, the thought in my head is that's me, that is me, there's a, and I think I may have shared a share this before, but I have this really beautiful book, spiritual book, and in it there's a story when these two priests are walking and one of them points to a man who's laying on the side of the road and just in a really bad state and he says something negative about the guy and the other the other one says there, but by the grace of God, go. I and I'm I'm pretty sure I shared a whole episode about that but he's basically saying I could be that guy, I Could be laying in that ditch right now, but I'm fortunate that I'm not and there's a series of blessings and good fortune that have Protected me from becoming that. And that's exactly. I look at this car and I thought, wow, that's me. I'm broken, I, you know there's parts of me that I don't know when they'll get fixed, because I see, you know, like in my last episode, I still struggle with FOMO, really bad.

Amjed: 15:54

I have anxieties, I have these panic like panic attacks which are a much smaller, like Significantly smaller than what they used to be. But I have these panic attacks and I have depression bouts and I in all of those things still happen, but I'm, but I'm driving Like, I'm getting from point A to point B. I'm forward, there's forward movement. I'm not trapped in an endless circle or cycle where I'm just sitting and have given up on the world, where I've given up on everything and given up on the hope that anything will ever get better.

Amjed: 16:33

Now I, you know, if I, even if I identify a bad day or have a bad day, I identify something that's still a lingering negative thought in my head. It's like a friend of mine who is a counselor says you know their automatic negative thoughts. They ants and ants ruin the picnic. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that before as well. But you know, when I have one of those automatic negative thoughts, that where it feels like I'm going backwards, my very soon reaction I don't know if it's immediate I was about to say immediate, but I I know it comes pretty quickly there's this thought that says yeah, but it's gonna get better, because now you can see it, now You've identified it, now you can work on it, you can pray about it, you can reflect on it, you can share, you can take this to all your support structure and we can, we can work on this and there's hope for improvement, whereas before it felt like there is no hope, there's no point. What's the point? It's just all downhill from here.

Amjed: 17:41

So, just like that car, I Feel like I'm still able to get from point A to point B. I'm able to Do, you know, function in society, be a contributing member of society, support my family, you know, and be there, be present, enjoy time with them, which I mean. I know these sound like things that to some people are like, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do, but there was a large peer portion of my life where I couldn't, I wasn't emotionally available to be there for my family, to spend time with my family, to enjoy them, to enjoy their company, or my friends, or I didn't, I don't know. I had friends, but I don't know how much they knew about me because I wore so many masks In my work. It was. It just felt all like a show that I was putting on to make sure that people didn't know that inside there was this really sad, broken, damaged car, and so I'd dress it up to look like an awesome car and drive around all day and at the end of the day it would still be a broken car. And today I'm like that clunker. You know, I'm driving around, I'm all bashed up from the outside, but the engine's running much smoother than it's ever run. I'm getting from point A to point B and there's hope that, yeah, we may not be able to fix it all in one day, but we can take it to a place that repairs windshields and we'll get the back windshield fixed and then we'll take it to a body shop and maybe they can repair the start. For starters, maybe we can afford to get the back bumper fixed and then later we can get the trunk fixed and slowly, slowly get put back together.

Amjed: 19:47

I don't know where I saw this, but I thought I saw somebody said something about. You know, humpty Dumpty had a really bad day. You know, it's like a really bad summer. I think it's in. You know, in case you're not familiar, you know which. If you grew up in the US you probably are, but if you're listening to this internationally, you may not be familiar with. You know, humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty took a big fall. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again and they always show Humpty Dumpty as an egg and he falls off the wall and cracks and then they can't figure out how to put him back together again. I'm like that broken egg and I'm walking around just sort of pieced together and I used to feel like there was no egg inside, just a broken shell taped together. But I feel like the egg is coming back, so that I know I wasn't sure if that would actually turn into an episode. I have to be honest, because I saw that and I thought, wow, look at me, there's the car, I'm the car. But then I thought that's not enough to share an episode about. But seems like I was able to share quite a bit about it.

Amjed: 21:06

I will stop there with that analogy. There's possibly more I could pull on, but maybe in another episode and I will switch to the random message of the episode. So let's grab my little bucket and sift through the fortune cookie fortunes messages. I in case you're new to the podcast like I throw out all the actual fortune telling type stuff, like you're gonna win a lot of money or whatever. I throw those out and I just like to keep the cold quotes. So here's an interesting one.

Amjed: 21:42

Practice makes perfect. That's an old cliche. I've heard that a million times but I don't know that I've ever really stopped and reflected on it. So let's do that together. Practice makes perfect, and so what I've always assumed this to mean is that if I like, through repetition, if I keep practicing and practicing and practicing and practicing something, then eventually I'll get really good at it. And but you know, and I think it sounds cool and a practice makes perfect it's like there's got this little bit of a ring to it and rhyme to it. But lately I've been on a anti-perfection thing. I guess this also ties back to the car story, but you know it's I don't know, I don't want. Now it's almost. I feel like I'm repulsed by the idea of perfection. I'm even though there's part of me that's still shooting for that, still aiming for that.

Amjed: 22:55

Like, for example, I had to send an email out yesterday and you know, with the attachment, and you know I've been working on this for quite some time, it was a big thing that I needed to send out to a lot of high-ranking, important people and my gosh, I probably looked through that thing 50 times today. I kept second guessing myself like, wait, I don't know, I think I feel like I'm forgetting something. Maybe I shouldn't send it. What if I send it? And there's like a big error in it and everybody's like, oh my gosh, what is this? This doesn't make any sense. Should I include this? Should I not include? I mean, all day I was struggling with sending this thing and at the end of the day I was talking to someone and I said, just send it, it's okay, it's not going to be perfect.

Amjed: 23:42

And you know, for me, I, you know, there's that other saying that says don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough. I think that's how it goes. But I personally have, I'm like on a personal mission to eliminate perfection from my repertoire, like from my, my mind and my goals. And I, as a matter of fact, like I am almost at the point where I want to celebrate imperfection, cause it's such a strong reminder of how human we all are, and you know just this idea that in every error there's this awesome reminder that I'm a human being, that I have feelings and thoughts and emotions and I, I care about people, I bring good into the world, I can be creative, but it's all part of my imperfect, imperfect being, and so failure or imperfection, maybe failures like the strong version of imperfection, even like little minor imperfections, to me are things to be celebrated as long, you know, as long as there's they're not causing harm. Now, if I'm hurting someone through my imperfection, then there's an opportunity to really focus on how to make it better so that I can not harm someone next time. But the idea that I can practice and practice and practice until I'm perfect, I think for me what it is is like I'm practicing, practice and practice until I'm comfortable and authentic and can take off the masks and take off all the pretend and just be because I've practiced whatever enough that it comes naturally and I don't have to fake it. That kind of goes with that saying of like fake it till you make it. You know, just keep, I keep faking it, I keep practicing it and faking it until it becomes the natural way that I operate. So, yeah, I'm on a mission. I don't know, maybe, maybe we ought to start.

Amjed: 26:01

A friend of mine, when I first started this podcast, a friend of mine who listens to the podcast suggested you know, it's like maybe, I don't know. Together we came up with this idea I don't remember whose idea it was, but of the secret shamer society. That's what it was the secret shamer society, people who deal like, struggle with shame, and you know I could flip that. And another way to look at it is, like you know, we could be the not so secret imperfect society. I, just, like I said, I'm just imagining like a whole bunch of t-shirts that say something like celebrate the imperfection or embrace the imperfection. Actually, that's a phrase I use quite often is embrace the imperfection, embrace the imperfection, embrace the humanity, be human and be proud of it, and I just and be happy about it. I guess that's what I'm striving for. Well, thanks for listening and, as always, if you get something of benefit here, I hope you keep coming back. Take care.