In this episode, I talk about a paper plate. But more importantly, I talk about why recognizing the joy in mundane ay to day moments matters.
And we are back with docks of an addict. This is M. Welcome back to my show. And thank you so much for listening. This is usually the part of any podcast where we would have a little bit of banter. But of course it is just me. So unless you want to hear me banter with myself. I don't think I have anything else to talk about today. So I am just going to dive right into the subject matter. So I actually thought of recording this pod. Yesterday. I I've actually been pretty stressed out this week, blah, blah, blah. Applied to a hundred jobs. Got rejected by 30 of them already. Tech is shit right now. It's a. It's a cold market. But that's. But that's for the financial podcast. This is thoughts of an addict. Yesterday. I was having kind of a rough day and actually went to lunch with one of my best friends. In business school. And we were just sitting there shooting the breeze. In suddenly behind me. He's like, yo dude, look at that. And I turn around and I see this fucking paper plate. That's it. Just a paper plate. Just rolling down the street. And I shit, you not, this thing rolled. Down the street for a minute, minute, 15 seconds. I had never seen anything like this in my entire life. And we just sat there. Jaws dropped like holy shit. How far can this fucking plate keep going? And eventually this paper plate fell down. which I call it an Oakland tumbleweed. And I was like, wow, fuck. That was cool. And in that minute, minute and a half. That was the best that I had felt in a really long time, at least for a few days. When I was watching that paper plate, I wasn't thinking about a single thing in the world. Except for watching how far that plate would go. I wasn't thinking about. Fuck. Am I gonna become an addict again tomorrow? Shit. Am I ever going to find a job? Nah, I was just totally in that moment. And it made me recognize. A really important thing about my life. And that is that my life. is simply composed of moments. Yeah, of course, having a plan for your life, getting a career, all this stuff. It's super important. And this isn't to minimize the importance of those things. But your career, for example, it could be a relationship. It could be, it could be anything in your life. I'll take a career for example, cause it's relevant to me right now. Uh, career. Isn't a moment. It's really just an idea. What a career actually is. It's just a ton of fucking little moments together. And in each one of those moments, It's an opportunity to be grateful. It's an opportunity. To be in awe. It's an opportunity to find a piece. See what I was in active addiction. I never enjoyed any of the moments. I mean, I guess you could argue that. I enjoyed the moments when I was high, but, but that's not real right. And the moments when I was clean. I would never enjoy what was right in front of me. I would just be thinking about F fuck. What am I going to do next year? What am I going to do in 10 years? And while I'm doing all that future tripping. I'm not recognizing that there's a moment in front of me right now. There could be some really fucking cool things who knows maybe six years ago when I'm future tripping out of my mind. I wouldn't have been able to appreciate that paper plate. That made my day. And I think in my everyday life, Today, even clean, even five years clean. I find myself getting distracted. For moments. Every day, I walked to school and, It's not the most beautiful place in the world, but fuck, it's still California. It's cloudy 80% of the time, but there's still trees and shit here. That's cool. And some often I find myself. Ruminating and thinking about everything that could go wrong with my life and then trying to like, be like, oh no, but all this is going great, but I don't see all, you know, all this fucking monkey jabbering in my head. But I don't look around and recognize that I'm fucking alive right now. Not to get to a theory on everybody, but how much of a fucking trip is that? This universe has been around for 6 billion years. And you're here. Right now. Listening to my fucking sexy voice. How amazing is that? In the grand scheme of things. You know, you're going to be alive for 80 years, maybe science and shit longer. But. Universe has been erected a long time and you're here right now. And you have the opportunity to experience all of these moments. And. I would say for you today. This is my ask of you. Don't let your mind get in the way too much of enjoying the little things, because that's what life is all about. And that sounds like a platitude and what the fuck is I'm talking about, but I mean, it right. If you think about it, literally. All like, this is a bunch of little things. Put together to create this one big fucking life. And the onus is on you. To take that little bit of mental energy. To really appreciate those small things and those small moments. But I'm an active addiction when I was in active addiction. It was literally impossible. To enjoy any of those moments. But now that I'm clean. I don't just automatically get to enjoy those moments. It takes a little bit of effort, right? Like. When I'm walking to school. I gotta take a second. I gotta take a second stop. Take a deep breath, look up into the sky and be like, damn. You know what. It's pretty fucking beautiful out here today. Things are pretty fucking cool. And the more you do that. The more that it's going to happen subconsciously. You're going to be able to start just enjoying those regular mundane, small day-to-day moments. And your brain's just going to turn into this machine that appreciates those things automatically for you. So I would ask of you today. Take some time and just appreciate. While you're listening to me, wherever the fuck you are. Look around. If you've been blessed with vision, take a look around and see all the shit that's around. You. And appreciate some of it. And, maybe what you're really looking forward to something in the future. Maybe you have some awesome job lined up, or maybe you're going to go on some fucking killer vacation. And that is awesome. But remember that those are just composed of moments to. You could be on this absolutely amazing vacation. But if you're freaking out, if your future trip in, at a reminiscent and you're not going to be able to enjoy those moments at all, So I'd ask you to start trying to enjoy even the mundane things. And then it's going to make the special things. Even that much more special. I think it's critical. For the addict and just the normie. To open yourself up to the unexpected joys of everyday. If you're constantly thinking of you're addicted to your thoughts. If you don't look up from your phone, once in awhile. You might miss out on that paper plate, you might miss out on that unexpected, silly joy. No matter what the Frick is going on in your life right at this second. You're probably. Okay. Unless you're like listening to my podcast on your deathbed. Which would be flattering, but incredibly bizarre. You're probably okay right now. If you still have the capacity to hear and to breathe. And you could find something that's going on right in this moment. That's pretty cool. I feel like today's message or my ramblings or whatever you want to call this. It can be applied to pretty much everybody, but if you listen to this because you want. You want to hear about my addiction more? I'd say to my addicts out there, my addicted friends. This is one of the best parts about getting clean dude. You can find enjoyment. For fucking nothing just from existing, just from recognizing that there's a lot of cool shit happening in every single moment. So, let that be another prerogative for you to get cleaned today. You don't need fucking meth. You don't need Oxy. You don't need alcohol. You don't need cigarettes. You don't need any of that stuff. You always have the capacity to appreciate what's going on in front of you right now. I am off to go have a very, very silly, silly game night with some of my favorite people. Business school. And it's probably going to be the most fun I've had. In a really, really long time. God, I appreciate the small things. God, I appreciate the little moments. Take a deep breath. Relax, you're alive for another day, baby. Thank you so much for listening. This is M with thoughts of an addict. I hope you join me next time. Have a great rest of your day.