The hand I was dealt

Amjed: 0:01

So first of all, I'd like to apologize in advance for the sound of my voice. I am recovering from battling a cold slash sinus infection and I know I don't sound like myself. I'm kind of. I think I started out by saying this is not a substitute, it's actually me. But so, anyway, today's episode talk a little bit about just you know like, some personal challenges around belief in myself and the resources that I have.

Amjed: 0:37

Hi, this is Amjed, a simple, beautifully broken man living in a complex world.

Amjed: 1:09

Welcome my fellow humans to episode 46 of my Humanity Showing. And I know this is not a substitute, it's the same old guy. I just am recovering from a cold. So yeah, I don't know if they're quote, unquote, legitimate excuses, but I have two excuses for being late. This week.

Amjed: 1:33

I'm posting a recording. One is that I was traveling, and that one I don't count as much as an excuse, because I had originally planned to record the episode for this week before leaving and have that pre scheduled so that when the time came and I knew I would be traveling, the episode would publish and I just it was like the one episode I didn't get to. I recorded a couple ahead of time and then I've got late recording and I didn't record that last one. So yeah, it's not a great excuse. But then when I got back I thought, okay, as soon as I get back, it'll be, you know, just slightly late and I will record it. And I got sick on the last couple of days of the trip. It was relatively pretty sick on the way back and so I'm still not fully recovered, as you can tell. But I wanted to record something. It may not be a full episode, but wanted to at least put something out there, as you know, to share and can maintain my promise to myself to keep going with this thing and not get, you know, use excuse, use excuses to break the pattern that we've got going here. So here I am recording, I'm a little groggy and I feel we'll see how long we make it. So along those lines, you know, I thought there's a couple of things to share and you know this, you know, getting sick reminds me of the mortality conversation. You know that I've had a couple of times on this podcast already. But you know that whole idea that it's just, you know, as long as I'm healthy, everything's fine and wonderful and dandy.

Amjed: 3:39

And then, you know, I'm not feeling well all of a sudden, and it's like the world shifts. The focus, the focus of how I view the world, shifts Because suddenly the things that seemed really critically important and urgent and just suddenly it's, they take a backseat to everything else. And you know, this trip that I just came back from had an opportunity to reflect on resources and I was thinking about, you know, for myself, like what are some of the resources at my disposal? And I came up with three just right off top of the, you know, like top of my head, three and I'm talking more in my personal life, but in general you know three resources and one of them is wealth. Like you know, just financially, how much, how much money do you have, like what can you do with the money that you have? The second is time and it's how am I spending?

Amjed: 4:59

I think I may have shared this before, I don't remember, but you know, friend of mine, I think I did share this. But anyway, at the risk of you hearing it again, I'll just mention it real quick, because it's so, it's so powerful and it's not, you know, unique to him. It just it was the context in which it really hit me. You know a friend of mine who started an orphanage a few years back and has, like you know, 60 kids at this orphanage and they're getting ready to open another one. And just, I mean, it's just amazing to me that people can do this stuff. I can sit and dream about it and then other people actually do it.

Amjed: 5:36

And then one of the fundraisers, he said you know, the only difference between us being able to do this and anybody else is. He said there really is no difference. Like we have, we all have 24 hours in a day. It's just a question of how do you prioritize those 24 hours? And I think about that question all the time, like, what does that mean? Like am I not well? How am I prioritizing? And then I'm not doing the things that I quote, unquote feel are important or believe and I'm important, but my actions are not aligned with those feelings or those words or those thoughts. You know it's yeah, I want to spend more time doing charitable work, yet I don't spend more time doing charitable work. So it's like, yeah, it's great to have that intention, but what does that look like if there's no action to support it, if there's no prioritization of my time? And you know my finances as a couple, as two of the resources.

Amjed: 6:46

And then the third one is health. And you know how am I taking advantage of my current health status and to do the things that I want to do? And is there something I need to be doing to improve my health status? Because I've shared before. You know I have what I believe to be several challenges health challenges nothing by the grace of God, nothing like you know, horrific, but you know, just dealing with chronic fatigue and some other issues. And you know, I have a dear friend of mine, who I may have shared about as well, who is going through some just terrible, terrible health things and the prognosis is not promising, and is younger than me and two small children.

Amjed: 7:45

I don't know. I just I feel so helpless when I think about her plight and but, but, coming back to myself, what am I doing with the health that I have? What am I doing with the time that I have? What am I doing with the finances that I have? Like, how am I using those resources that I've been given in a positive way to, you know, make a positive impact on the world, or am I only focused on my own? You know, I don't know. Success, gratification, like, whatever those words are that you want to insert there, fill in the blank Am I more focused on that than I am on the actual achievement of, or the actual, you know, pursuit of, the things that I quote, unquote believe are important? So I had a lot of time during this recent trip to reflect on that. It was a spiritual trip and a religious trip and you know there's just a lot of opportunity to reflect on that and kind of think about, like, what am I doing with those resources that I've been given.

Amjed: 8:59

You know, the other thing that related to that that I was thinking to share about was I don't even know if it's related honestly, tell you the truth, I'm a guy I would say Med Head, but I haven't taken anything today. But you're definitely groggy, excuse me, just definitely not, not, not. Not everything's firing the way it should be right now. But a couple of things that came up during this trip made me realize that you know, I've always viewed myself as a late bloomer and which is why I try to squeeze so much out of life, because I feel like I'm already behind the eight ball, that other people my age have accomplished so much.

Amjed: 9:47

And here I am and I'm still like, at whatever phase that I'm in in my life, and I think in large part it has to do with my inability to problem solve and to my inability to maybe problem solve something. My inability to it may be inability is the wrong word. Sorry, I had to pause there for a second and say like is inability the right word? Maybe, not inability, it's just my view on the world. To you know that I it takes me a while sometimes to figure things out and I'm embarrassed by that at times. I'm embarrassed that you know. So I'll give you the example that came up this morning.

Amjed: 10:46

You know, I woke up and I'm just my back is hurting and and my wife said, you know, the whole time we were on this trip we went on a two-week trip and you didn't once complain about your back hurting. Yet as soon as we come back home, you're complaining about the back again. Maybe it's our bed, maybe it's the bed, the beds that we were sleeping on in the hotels we were in. And so I started searching, like what kinds of beds they use in hotels, and like what is the? And Basically found out that I've been sleeping on the wrong bed for most of my life. And I'm thinking, wow, I had no idea. You know, I had never equated my lower back pain with the fact that my bed might be too soft. And so, you know, like all of a sudden the slight bulb goes off.

Amjed: 11:35

But the very next question because I'm so addicted to shame, the very next thing that goes through my head is, like You're 51 years old, like, how did it take you that long to figure that out?

Amjed: 11:48

Other people would have already figured it out by now. It's like oh, you know, and I guess that's my tendency to want to beat myself up, but in reality that mean that I just at times I feel like I'm a late bloomer. I mean, I come up with, I get the aha moment At the 11th hour of a project, where it's like, oh, I think I know what we need to do here, not at the second or third hour of the project, where if that would have been a really good time to have it, because then there's so much time to incorporate this aha moment Instead of we're about to wrap things up and now I'm having this great epiphany and sometimes it's too late. Sometimes I have not been able to incorporate the wonderful new idea that I had because it's just too late in the process of Whatever I was working on to incorporate it. Excuse me. I am tired.

Amjed: 12:44

Yeah, I probably should wrap up soon. It reminded me of something else that happened while it was on this trip. So we're in Turkey, istanbul, which is a beautiful place. If you've never been there, it's you know just. Yeah, we were in there like kind of close to the water of the sea of Marmara, and you know, it's just, I don't know, we didn't it was, it's just beautiful, you know, really, really enjoyed ourselves.

Amjed: 13:18

We were only there for like three days, but at one point we had to get from somewhere to somewhere else and we were tired of because we've been walking quite a bit and we thought, you know what, let's just get a card so that we can go hop on the train. They have like a subway train, tram Kind of thing that's there and it's very close to where we were and we were standing in front of the station. We thought, yeah, let's just get one. So we went and inserted our credit card and ordered a thing and it was 300 and something lira. I was like man, it's a lot, you know, for a day pass so that we could get on this train and kind of ride it around and maybe walk a little bit less. And the thing process is as, gave us a receipt and then no card dispensed from the machine.

Amjed: 14:08

And we sat there for a while and could not figure out how to get the card to come out of the machine. And I got really frustrated and, in particular, these are the words that are coming out of my mouth. So this is like kind of a regression thing. Right, these are the words that are coming out of my mouth as I'm standing there in front of this thing and I'm, you know, I walked away from it because other people wanted to start using the machines. I said I don't think that was working and I'm pacing back and forth and I'm really upset, but why? I was like, what are we gonna do? Just forget it, let's walk, and you know it. And I literally said something to the effect of Anyone else would not have had this issue. And in my wife looked at me and said what are you talking about? I said if you had gone over to buy the card, you would have successfully been able to get a card out of that machine. But because of me, because I couldn't do it, and it's because I was upset, you know, and I regressed to some of my old attitudes and she just looked at me she said wow, I Can't believe you're blaming yourself for a malfunction of the machine, you know. And I think when she said that, it like I realized what I had just done. And it still took me a little while.

Amjed: 15:27

I had to kind of go quiet for a little bit and then, as we walked to our next destination, and then, and the other thing she said to me which like really shed light on it, she's like it's like $11, 11 us dollars, because in my head I'm thinking 300 and whatever lira, turkish lira To me that's a big number, it's triple digits. But you know I'm not it. You know Money-wise like my, my spouse is, and she can do that kind of math in her head really quick and she's like it's 11 bucks. I mean, why are we getting so spun up over $11? You know it's, let's just walk to our next spot and go on, and you know. So we started walking and I thought about what she was, what she had said, and I was like, yep, there I go.

Amjed: 16:21

I have regressed into my old behaviors and my old attitudes and my old thoughts, my old thought patterns, which is that, because I am somehow inferior, I Cannot Successfully execute a remedial task that normal people can quote-unquote normal. I'm allergic to the word normal, by the way, because I don't even know what that means. What does that mean? Does anybody even know what that means? Is that come from the bell curve? You know it's like you fall into the middle quadrant of the bell curve, but I don't know, it's like I. I've never met anybody who was quote-unquote normal, like everybody's, unique in their own way, and you know it's not like where there's this cookie cutter Formula that everybody fits into, and so you know it.

Amjed: 17:12

There I was like in the middle on the streets of Turkey, going back to that crazy idea that there's something wrong with me, when in reality it's just life, it's just, that's the situation I'm in. So this whole idea that I'm a late bloomer, that it took me 51 years to figure out I was sleeping on the wrong bed, or you know 27 years to figure out that, you know they took me 27 years to figure out. Well, I Will go into that one. That's uh, oh, gosh. Well, I opened it up, so I'll just mention it real quick. But yeah, I just recently found out there's a particular food that my wife really doesn't like, and I had no idea. I had no idea. I thought she just avoided it for dietary reasons. Like I didn't realize it's like something she actually doesn't like and I was pretty embarrassed that I didn't know that and and very surprised and kind of I thought, man, I am slow.

Amjed: 18:30

There's a lot of things about life that I just don't pick up on and you know, sometimes I don't remember things. I Can't remember what somebody said or did and I think, man, I have a terrible memory. But then again, if I really like a balanced view, there's a lot of things I do know, there's a lot of things I do remember, there's a lot of things that I have figured out. Yet my brain and I guess this is the whole message for today is that my brain focuses on the quote-unquote failures and Completely throws out everything else. So in it, in a particular day, if I did 20 things well and you know it went well, it was like I was able to accomplish or succeed and Getting the outcome that I was hoping for or expecting.

Amjed: 19:38

And there's one thing that I didn't. My brain will fixate on that one thing. It will magnify it like a thousandfold and Erase all the other things Like all the other. Oh well, you did. There was this, there was this, there was all these. You know like good things that happened. You helped this person, you went here, you did this. You know you figured this out. We were all struggling with it and you know my brain will erase all of that just like Take it off the plate. That was a sound effect. Take it.

Amjed: 20:18

Yeah, I am loopy anyway, Take it off and just fixate on the one thing that I couldn't do, like get a car to come out of a machine and, to quote, you know, my wonderful spouse you're taking, you're blaming yourself for, for a malfunction of a machine. You know, like that's exactly what I was doing. That's exactly what I was doing and that's the kind of thinking. That's the kind of thinking that made me so depressed all the time and made me suicidal and, you know like, disfunctional in a lot of ways, because I would just shut down. So, in a situation like that, instead of saying, okay, what can we do? Can we call the number on the machine, or can we Find out where the nearest office is that we can go talk to somebody? Or can we just say, okay, forget the $11 and move on? You know we're on vacation, let's just try to focus on having, you know, a positive experience rather than fixating on this one negative thing. You know, instead of moving on, I shut down, like I completely Like everything just starts to shut down Because I'm too busy beating myself up for something that may or may not, even I may not have had any influence on or control in, because the question I kept, you know, the thing that was going through my head was like why did I pick that machine? There were six machines there and I went to one that was broken because that's the kind of thing I do Now. I know that sounds ridiculous and it maybe even sounds a little nuts, like to someone who's listening to that, thinking you really did that Like. You really like blamed yourself for a machine malfunction and I'm sitting here telling you, yes, I did, and I don't think it's because I'm nuts and I don't think it's because of ridiculous. It just because of decades of wiring and programming inside of myself to where I take. I Immediately look for my own fault. That's my default setting and, if I'm not aware, that's how I got into such a negative place now, fortunately. So I want to end on a positive note. So, fortunately, because of several years in the last several years of Therapy and sport groups and all kinds of work since I got the help that I finally needed in February of 2007, because of all of that intervention, I Now can move past that.

Amjed: 23:10

So when someone you know one in the past I would have never said anything like that out loud, to the point where someone could have said to me like what are you doing? Like that doesn't make sense. I would have just held it all internal and pretended like everything was okay. So that's the first thing that would have happened. So if there's a lesson in here, it's. You know, I kind of go through with some of the lessons for me a bit.

Amjed: 23:31

Number one I Was open about it. I was open about what my, what I was feeling and what I was experiencing, and I was expressing it out loud. And that is the first step for me, because had I not done that, Then no one would have ever known that that's what was going through my head and that's how I lived most of my life. I just pretend that like everything was fine and Internally I was completely falling apart. So because I vocalized it, my wife was able to point out to me the fallacy in my thinking. But it was only because I vocalized it, and For most of my life I have not vocalized it. So that's kind of like a first thing that I'm like, wow, look at that, the all that, all that help that I got is, actually Was paying off. And the second thing was that, because of all of that kind of reprogramming that I've been working on.

Amjed: 24:32

It was a quick shift out of that negative mode and to say, okay, that is Not a hypothesis I want to hold on to. I Don't want to hold on to this idea that I am somehow responsible for this machine not working and that because this machine didn't work, I'm a failure, like that. I disagree with that hypothesis. I don't longer want to hold that idea or that thought in my head. And I was able to just let it go, just release it to the wind, like as if I was holding it was like a windy day and I was holding a tissue and I just let go of the tissue and it flew off in the wind. That's kind of what it felt like. It was just like this it was gone. There was another sound effect I'm in sound effect mode today but there it was and it was gone.

Amjed: 25:27

And within how would gosh, I want to say within an hour I felt like I was back to baseline and, you know, after apologizing for my little meltdown that I had, we were able to continue enjoying our trip, you know. And for me to acknowledge like, yeah, that was wrong for me to have that kind of reaction that I had. That was unhealthy and ineffective and thank you for for pointing out the fallacy in my thinking. And let's just let's continue to. Let's go shop for baklava, which they have like shops at every corner in in the area that we were in in Turkey, you know, and so that's where we went. You know it was like our next stop, so you know it's. There's hope, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Amjed: 26:26

So, if you find yourself in that, in those kinds of situations where you're like I don't know why I'm having this reaction that I'm having, I'm really, you know, I'm upset or I'm depressed or whatever, my you know, this is where I'm sharing just my own experience is what helps me is number one, to say it out loud to somebody I just, I don't know, I can't stress that enough. That is such a powerful tool for me. You know, either the person right in front of me or get on a phone and call somebody that I trust and say, okay, this is the, this is what's going through my head right now and I can't see straight as a result of it, so that someone can shine, you know, be a mirror for me and shine a light on that. Say, okay, here's where it feels like you may be off off base here, where your calibration is off. And then the second thing is just that you know, choosing which ideas I want to hold on to, which is taking practice, is really taking practice, a lot of practice over the years and just reinforcing that in in different settings. So yeah, I don't know, I feel like I hit on a few different topics today, but you know, it all goes back to this idea of you know, with the, with what I've been given, you know, I've been given a particular mental capacity and whatever that mental capacity.

Amjed: 27:52

It is because of that I chose the machine. That I chose that's fine, because that I was working with the best version of me that I had at the moment and maybe, maybe there were clues in the, in the environment. Maybe the person before me, you know and I think this was part of the thing was like I think the person for me before me tried to use the machine and it wasn't working and I just didn't register it Like it didn't. When that person moved, my brain didn't say hold on a minute. I don't think it worked for them, I don't think we should go to that machine. It wasn't until after it didn't work for me that I, my brain went see, dummy, it didn't work for them, and then you went to it anyway. But that's okay, it's okay and I need to be okay with that because that's the resource that I have, that's the capacity that I have and you know, I just need to be okay with that and not turn that into a negative spiral and and then you know, vocalize it, connect with others and continue to choose the path of positivity. But with that I'll stop on that.

Amjed: 29:07

I actually ended up going to full episode and see if I can grab a random message of the day out of the bucket. So, hold on, how is it set up for this? All right, here, mixing the bucket I like to mix them nice, because you know, I don't know, I want to make sure it's as random as possible. It's a little thing that I try to challenge myself with, all right. So let's see here.

Amjed: 29:44

Confidence isn't something that you get, it's something that you are. That is an interesting quote. I have to admit I find that very interesting. Confidence isn't something you get, it's something that you are. So you know, like as I usually do, I like to pause and just kind of think about some of the keywords in here. So one is the word confidence. Of course that's the one it starts with. And what does that mean? And boy it's an interesting coincidence that it and it coincides with a lot of what we're talking about is you know that?

Amjed: 30:25

You know I'm here, I am like lack of confidence, second guessing myself, and then I'm trying to build the confidence in myself. And what this is suggesting, if I choose to believe it, is that, you know, confidence isn't something I go to the store and buy. It isn't something that I go and go through a bunch of therapy and just suddenly appears it's not. You know, I can't buy it from a therapist, I can't borrow it from a friend, I can't, you know, climb a mountain and go get it. Because, you know, if I didn't have the confidence to begin with, how would I climb the mountain? Right? But it's rather something that you are.

Amjed: 31:12

So that, tells me, is it's like at the core of my being. I either accept that I'm capable or I don't. And for me I have to have a pretty strong support group to help me with that, because by nature I don't necessarily have that built in, like it's not inherently programmed in me as a like a pre-programmed wiring that says you know, oh, you're, you know, you're good, you're capable, you're qualified, you're able to do great things. You know. That's just not how I'm. I personally am wired, I know other people are, and it just amazes me, like I have a friend of mine who you know I was just thinking about this the other days probably like 15 years younger than me and has accomplished something that I've been debating about forever, forever, maybe 20 years, and he's accomplished it already at an age that he's like 15 years younger than me.

Amjed: 32:25

He's already accomplished something that I've been thinking about, just thinking about and talking myself out of, because I don't think I'm capable of it. And he has this just like incredible confidence level that I just I look at that and I think, wow, it's almost like no is not in his vocabulary. Like if someone is saying like, oh, you can't do that because of blah I think he is brain would just say I mean, this is just me making up stuff, but this is how I perceive, you know, like people like that with that level of confidence. Or it's like who says, who says I can't do that, I'll never know until I try and let me go, and then they just go and do it, and I'm the kind of person who's like, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't do that. I have to. I have to work significantly hard at getting to a point where I can say, okay, maybe you can do it, let's give it a shot. And it requires a lot of support from others as well.

Amjed: 33:31

So, yeah, it's a very interesting quote. It really makes me wonder, like you know, how is that confidence within me? Is it lacking because, like, I haven't developed that muscle? Or is it because there's just, it's just inherent to my being, that I'm just a different kind of person, it's a different resource. That's a resource that I did wasn't inherently given, you know, like anyway, I don't know what that means, but interesting, interesting reflection there. So with that, I will wrap up for the entire episode and wish you all well and, as always, if you're getting some benefit here, I do hope that you will come back, take care.