Being Present Through Loss and Loneliness: What I'd Tell My Younger Self

What does it actually look like to stay present when you're driving 10–12 hours a day, feeling lonely in your car, grieving lost friends, and still trying to create?

For this milestone episode, I tried something different—I asked Claude to generate 6 spontaneous topics about my life that I'd never seen before, then hit record and responded from the heart with zero preparation.

What emerged was a raw conversation about staying mindful through exhausting work, creative expression as survival, what loss teaches us about impermanence, the difference between loneliness and aloneness, gaming as a spiritual practice, and what I'd tell my 25-year-old self about cherishing time with the people I love.

No outline. No safety net. Just coming back to presence, over and over again.

In this episode:

• Staying mindful while driving long hours in the gig economy
• Why creative expression matters even when no one's listening
• What losing friends to death and distance taught me about impermanence
• The difference between being alone and being lonely
• Can gaming be a spiritual practice? Bringing mindfulness to Overwatch
• What I'd tell my 25-year-old self about being present with my kids

Mentioned in this episode:
My Green Day covers from 18 years ago as a newly divorced single dad:
https://www.youtube.com/sephiros888

Want to be a guest or share your story?
Email: standingnowherepodcast@gmail.com

If this episode resonated with you, a 5-star review and a comment go a long way in helping the show reach more people who might need to hear it.

Come back. Keep coming back. That's all it is.

Transcript

The Experiment

Staying Present in the Gig Economy

Why We Create

What Loss Teaches Us

From Lonely to Alone

Play as Practice

Be There

Maybe

Jacob 0:01

Like I always thought to myself, just the general mindset was he's Trent, he's your son, he's always gonna be there, you know, and I kind of took my time with him for granted. Just be there as much as you possibly can for your children and your wife and your spouse, your husband, your family, your mother, your siblings. The time that you have with them is so it's so finite. And you think it's forever, but it's like before you know it, the snap of a finger, you hear this from old people all the time. Life goes by in the blink of an eye, and it really does. All you have is this moment, this eternal no w. And as always, it is a pleasure to be back with you. I am going to tell you guys right out of the gate that I am in a much busier time crunch period being the holidays. Uh, as I record this, it's December 9th. It'll come out on Thursday. And normally through each week, I have a process and a workflow for this podcast where I plan out and outline basically what I want to talk about. And most of the time it's spontaneous. It'll come to me during the week. I'll get like a topic or an idea, and I'll really drill into that and just see what comes out of me through the week, and I'll fill the outline up and then I'll organize it and then jump into an episode. This week I have not had a lot of time. I've been working a lot, and um, I have to work a lot of extra hours than I normally do, and just things have been all over the place. And I've had an idea for an episode that I've wanted to do for a while, which is uh to be spontaneous on a solo episode. And I have done three uh my first three episodes going back almost six months ago, they were they were spontaneous. I did not have any outline or preparation for them, and there's reasoning behind that. Um, but you know, episode four onward, I've always had like an outline or an idea of what I wanted to say. And this time, uh, I thought it would be fun to just do some spontaneous topics. And this week, I did, since I didn't have time to do an outline, I've had this idea kicking around in my head. Wouldn't it be fun if I had some spontaneous topics that uh were presented to me that I have no prior knowledge of, and I just speak from the heart about them. And that's exactly what I'm gonna do for this episode. So I've got about five or six topics generated by Claude that just came out of a response. I have not seen them yet, except for the first one. Uh, and I'm gonna start talking about it now. The first topic that Claude is giving me, and Claude knows me decently well. It knows the podcast decently well because it it uses um, it has like a behind-the-curtain memory, so it kind of knows your workflow and and your mind space. So I had Claude generate about five or six topics. We're gonna jump into the first one now. Uh, the first one that came out of the shoot says, talk about what it's like to maintain a contemplative practice while driving 50 plus hours a week in the gig economy. How do you stay present when you're exhausted and the work feels mindless? And I really like this question, this topic, because mindfulness and meditation or staying present, it it's one of those things where when you practice, you you're usually in a serene environment, which is good. Um, but that's not real life. Like, take me, for example. I wake up at 6:30 every morning. Um, you know, I have a little caffeine in the morning and um do my business, and then I meditate for 30 minutes every day in the morning. Some days I'm a little busier, I might only get 15 to 25, um, or I might not get to meditate at all in the morning, and I'll make up for it later, like at my lunch break or when I come home from work. But I always make it a very serious point to set time aside to meditate 30 minutes every day in the morning. It just starts my day off right. And I do zazen meditation. Sometimes I'll do vipassana, and I won't go into the weeds with those, but um, when you meditate in a peaceful environment, it's good practice. You keep coming back to your breath or your posture, like in zazan, and you don't get lost in the content of thought, in other words, what you're thinking about, but you simply notice after you've been taken away by thought, you keep coming back. And in a in a peaceful environment, it's great practice. But, like to Claude's question, uh, what is it like to maintain a contemplative practice while driving 50 hours a week in the gig economy? How do you stay present when you are exhausted and work feels mindless? So after I get up off my cushion, I take my daughter to school and I drive from 8 a.m. through to 2 p.m. So that's six hours of driving. Now, when I'm on the road, I have three to four apps that I am delivering on gig, uh, what is it, uh Grubhub, uh, Uber Eats, and Doordash. And I drive a stick shift as well. So I am juggling three apps and they are shooting offers at me constantly. So it's difficult. You know, my car is um pushing a lot of miles now. It's got 197,000 miles on it. I'm creeping up on 200k. Um, there's a lot in my head, too. I have I have one of those minds that can go in many different directions very easily, very quickly. And when I'm on the road, uh one of the my my brain is constantly it's very mean. I I've heard a quote that says, you know, your mind is like a dark alley, you don't want to go down it alone. And when you're doing gig work, you're by yourself all day in your car. So it's real easy for your brain to bully you, uh, at least in my case. And I have really hard thoughts. So to answer Claude's question, you know, what is it like? I'm I'm just kind of describing that process to you guys. Like I get off my cushion, I go drive for six hours, and that's just the first half of my day. And all kinds of thoughts appear, like uh, why didn't you go to college or why didn't you get a trade skill or why didn't you stay with the last job you were at and try to move up? Uh, or why haven't you applied for more jobs? Um, you know, I could list an endless amount of things that come at me. So those are things that come at me uh while I'm while I'm driving. And I just keep coming back to the feeling of my uh stick shift, uh, the feeling of my steering wheel. Uh, like today, for example, I I stayed up late watching uh a movie last night. I usually go to bed by 10:30, 11 at the latest, and I stayed up till midnight. I was watching uh Django Unchained. You know, I'm a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, and I just couldn't stop watching that movie and uh gave in to my uh my uh indulgence, my desire, and I I finished the film, but I'm a little tired now. And when I don't get a full night's rest, I usually get headaches. So today I've had a little bit of a headache. So while I'm driving, I am uh basically I was basically mindful of my headache. Uh when the headache would arise, I would oscillate between uh, oh, this headache, oh, and then oh, there's a headache. You know, there's there's a there's a huge chasm of a difference between oh, I have a headache, this hurts, to being aware that you are experiencing a headache. I don't know if I'm explaining that right, but headaches are wonderful because they are easy uh easy objects to observe in mindfulness because they it's like a gnawing pain. Like right now, I have the headache, for example. And um it's easy for you to just wince your eyebrows, pinch your uh your nose, you know, the bridge of your nose, and just be totally consumed with it as somebody, quote, that has a headache and is experiencing pain. But for me, I just use it as a um as an object of mindfulness. Either that or driving the car or um, you know, the gig apps that I have are super annoying. They beep at you constantly, especially Uber. Uh Uber is like a bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. So I'll be listening to um contemplative podcasts, things like that, or even my own episode uh because I want to hear it. Like, how did it come out? And just when there's like a good juicy bit that I'm really into, Uber will hijack my volume, pause the podcast, and just go bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing in your ear. And it's it's really annoying. And they do it on purpose so that you don't miss the offer. Um, but I that's the reality that I'm living in. That is the present moment. And um, you know, it's not so bad, it's not the end of the world. But when I feel annoyance at the podcast and I get lost in the annoyance or the anger, I eventually will catch that and use that as a pointer to come back to mindfulness. Oh, um, you know, I might say to myself, uh, there's the digital sound. I just sort of, oh, you know, notice it in silence, and then I come back. So it's just this oscillation all day long of coming back and coming back and seeing how long I can stretch uh continuities of uh mindfulness, where I am um in the present moment and I'm I'm waiting for the next thought to appear while I'm observing my five senses. And then when a thought comes in, uh usually I notice it right in the beginning, but there's times where I don't, it carries me away. And then when do I notice? Do I notice it in the middle of the thought or after the thought is concluded? Honestly, it is just noticing it, noticing how my body feels when I come home on my lunch break. Uh, are there any aches and pains? Sometimes my hands hurt because I am driving all day, and your hands have to remain um maintain a certain level of tension as you handle the steering wheel or the shifter. And then when you finally get to relax, all of that tension all day kind of builds up. And I like to massage my hands. I'll dig my thumb really hard into my hand and just focus on how it kind of hurts but feels good at the same time. And I use that as an object of meditation or focus. Um, I just I I in a nutshell, I try not to get lost in the storyline of my mind. And I just try to notice when there is thinking, not so much the content of the thoughts, and then I just come back. And if a thought is really important or I need to note something, I'll just make a note of it in my phone and then come back, you know, or I'll I'll just say like, Siri, remind me about this thing later, you know, and it'll it'll make the note for me. Uh so yeah, I think I pretty much covered that. So yeah, that's about 10 to 12 hours of driving and kind of a little peek of what my day looks like. So yeah, let's let's move on. We'll go to the second topic from Claude. I'm scrolling really slowly so I don't see the third topic. Okay. Topic number two. Claude says, eighteen years ago, you recorded Green Day covers as a newly divorced dad. Six months ago, you started this podcast. Uh, what is it about creative expression that calls to us even when no one might be listening? And this is really important. Eighteen years ago, I was a single dad. Uh in my first marriage, my ex-wife, you know, we were both really young, uh, young couple, young parents. She did not, for some reason, like me playing guitar. And I used to love to play guitar. I played a six-string electric guitar, and she didn't like it. So uh during our three years together, I pretty much stopped playing guitar. After I got divorced, for reasons I won't really digress into, I became a single dad. Uh she started visiting uh maybe once a week with our son, and then she was pretty much out of the picture for the next 10 to 12 years of his life. Uh she'd see him very rarely. And I don't say that to speak ill of her. Again, we were young, you know, uh she's become a much bigger part of his life now. But at the time, 18 years ago, when I recorded uh I recorded the American Idiot album by Green Day. I I covered the whole thing. I think there's maybe one track that I forgot to upload. And, you know, I was a I was a new single dad, and I thought, well, I can play guitar again and I I want to express myself again. So I bought a guitar, I got an amplifier, I got a really fancy pedal so I could do some of the special effects on my favorite albums. And to answer Claude's question, you know, what is it about creative expression that calls to us, even when no one might be listening? So creative expression is the most important thing that you can do as a person. If you are not expressing yourself creatively, it almost feels like you're dying inside. You know, so it's very important that you express yourself um creatively, artistically, and art, art and creativity come in many forms. Like Claude said, you know, 18 years ago, I recorded a cover, uh, I covered the Green Day album. And now I'm doing podcasts episodes, you know, trying to reach out and inspire people or or help people uh manage whatever they need to manage in their lives, you know. And I'm not an expert, I'm not a teacher, I'm not a guru. I'm just sharing what has helped me out of a dark place. And it feels very good to express myself creatively on this podcast. And it felt good 18 years ago when I just, you know, I picked up a guitar and I was rusty and I said, to hell with it. I'm just gonna record one of my favorite albums, get it out there. If you guys want to listen to it, by the way, I'll put the link in the show notes. Uh, but my other YouTube channel was Sophiros 888, and it's spelled S-E, that's S isn't Sam E P H I R O S eight eight eight. I just picked up the guitar and started singing because there's too many of us in society now, we're afraid to uh express ourselves, and there should be no reason for that. Because you are an expression of the universe, this cosmic mystery, whatever you want to call it, and uh it expresses itself through you. Like that's why meditation is such a beautiful thing, because when you go silent interiorly and you uh create pauses in that voice in your head, you tap into something that is not restricted by the finite. Any thought, anything in form is finite, it comes to a form, there's edges to it, and um it's a thing, it's limited, it's finite. But when you are in meditation, when you are with what you're doing, whether it's on a cushion or whether you're driving a car and you have a headache and you're juggling three apps, when you're with what you're doing, you are not restricted in concept, in a finite place of time. You are literally experiencing the eternal now, and it's so subtle that we miss it. So the more that you are able to tap into that space between the words, between the notes of music, that's where all the magic comes from. That's where the more you connect to that, the more you feel like everything is just working like it should be. I'm happy to be doing this and recording this and and hoping that it helps somebody. And and the way that you tap into that space between the notes, between the words, is practice. You just keep practicing. And before you know it, it starts to take over. You start to oscillate on that 50-50 zone, and then you start to dip more into the silent zone. And from that silence is where peace and bliss arise and the actions that you take are more effective. You know, when when Claude on this topic asks me, what is it about creative expression that calls to us, even when no one might be listening? It's it's it's just the fact that you are expressing yourself, you're allowing your true self to come through you as a conduit. And when you do that, you allow creativity to flow through you. And you do that by practicing coming back, coming back, coming back. Otherwise, you're in your head about yourself or this or that, and you're not there. And the whole creative force of the universe can flow through you when you when you learn to come back. So, what is it about creative expression that calls to us, even when no one might be listening? It feels good. But I'm I was still doing it because it felt good and just amazing to express myself, to see what would come out of me, and that feels good. Um, it's just our nature. The all of existence is creative expression. So let's move on to topic number three. Scroll down carefully here. Okay, topic number three. You've said you lost close friendships through death and abandonment during your dark period. What do we learn from losing people that we can't learn any other way? And y you can't You can't put it into words. Like I talked about it a few episodes ago. Uh, what to do. I think I called it like what to do when your friends are gone, or when it feels like all your friends are gone. And I talked about my episode um on that episode, my friend Pat, who passed away, who's a really good friend of mine. Uh right in the beginning, when my son Trent was really young and I was a new single dad. Uh, you know, he was a great friend, him and Rick, they would bring me to poker nights. Um, and one day I get a text from Rick, and the text just says, Pat died. And I was like, What? I won't rehash that because I spoke uh to some length about it before, but it was a very hard day for me, and it took me a while to really process it. I remember at the time I had just started doing gig work and I was on the road, and it was like COVID was just happening, there was like the shutdowns, and I was just so devastated, and I had so much time to think about it in the car between rides. You just have to process the loss, and it like when Claude asks, What do we learn from losing people that we can't learn any other way? You hear about death and impermanence, but when you actually experience losing someone you love, the reality sets in that there is nothing permanent in this world. When for me now, when when pain arises from people I've lost or friends who I I had one really good friend of mine. I mean, he was one of the best friends I've ever had. And I it was always a great time around him. And one one day he just decided to stop talking to me, and he really didn't tell me why. I have my ideas as to why, but we were such good friends, you know. I just I was racking my brain about it. Um, I sent him a a letter, a heartfelt letter apologizing, and it's like I never heard back ever, you know. I think he was going through some stuff. Um he stopped talking to all of us eventually, but he stopped talking to me first, and I just it never I don't know, it was right, it was like it was like experiencing a death, you know, somebody that you have known for so long, over a decade, we were friends. And just like that, he was gone. And then my friend Pat passed away, my friend Chris passed away, and then my friend Pete, you know, uh brother to my friend Rafi, who I had on the podcast, like I mentioned, and it was like people were just not everyone, but uh people were starting to disappear from my life, and it wasn't easy, you know, it's not easy, but it is an inevitable fact of life that eventually everything comes to an end. So what I what I remember that really helps me is remembering that the concept of birth creates the concept of death. The two cannot exist without one another. But if you if you remember that coincidence of opposites when it comes to existing and not existing, or being and non-being, or birth and death, you realize the two look different, but they are actually one thing. They are one whole. And it is death that gives meaning to life or to birth. If there was no death, you know, there would be no meaning to birth. Uh the two would disappear in unison. So when you mourn someone who's who's gone or lost, just remember they're not really gone. They their form is gone, but who they are is with you all the time. If you go back and listen to that episode I did with Rafi, at the very end, I read uh a poem by Tik Nathan who talks about this: how when you lose people, you don't really lose them. They're actually with you in your mindfulness, in everything you do, in the way the light um reflects on objects, uh, the way the waves of the ocean uh breathe, the way the wind feels in your hair, you know, um, and the feeling that arises when you mourn someone, that that sensation and that emotion is a concentration of love that you have for that person. Um your friends and your loved ones when they're gone. You can miss the form of Pat, the form of Pete, the form of whoever you've lost or I've lost in my life. And it's okay to let it be when you feel pain from someone you've lost. Let it be. Experience it. And then watch as it passes and see what the next moment brings. So when you've experienced loss, just remember that creates gain. So I think I've spoken enough on topic three. Let's move on to topic number four. Scrolling slowly. Okay, Claude says for topic four, there's being alone and then there's being lonely. Sorry, my nose is stuffy. There's being alone and then there's being lonely. You have experienced both. What is the difference? And how did you move from one to the other? There's being alone and there's being lonely. You've experienced both. What's the difference? And how did you move from one to the other? So for me, I have always been a social butterfly. I don't have that gene or that mindset that's like afraid to talk to people. I I like to have fun. I'm a social butterfly. Um, most of the people I think um in our circle of friends, I think most of them met each other through me because I'm just somebody who likes to meet people, likes to shake hands. One, you know, I I have people that are eventually going to be on this podcast that I met on the road doing deliveries, and I just talked to them. And then eventually the topic of the podcast would come up, and they said they want to be on, you know. Um, so I went from like a social butterfly status to being trapped in my car. You see the way I frame that? Trapped in my car doing deliveries for an excessive amount of hours, you know, 11 to 12 hours a day, like I was describing earlier, and not being able to socialize like I want to. So for me to go from being a like a social butterfly to being trapped in my car, I'll frame it like that again, it was rough. And I was lonely. I missed um having the attention of others, of socializing with my friends, whether it be gaming online or hanging out in person. But um, I missed that aspect of going out and hanging out. But the to Claude's topic here, there's being alone, there's being lonely. I've experienced both. What's the difference? How did I move from one to the other? So I went from a lonely state to an alone state. And some of you listening might be like scratching your head, like, whoa, what's the difference? Alone means all one. And what I'm suggesting to you is the difference between loneliness and aloneness is a wholeness. When you are alone, you are able to be alone and able to be happy and functional and okay. I'm not saying you need to go meditate in a cave the rest of your life, but if that was my reality, I would be okay with it. I was okay being in my car, even when it was quiet or for extended periods of time. Yes, I still miss my friends and I still miss my family, and I absolutely crave and want and desire a better living situation for me and my family, where I don't have to stress about my bills or work so much and I can spend time with people again. Absolutely. It's rough. But the difference is that I am not desperately dependent on um, you know, how much time I get with others. So, how did I move from one to the other? Honestly, it comes back to my spiritual practice again, to being present, to being with what is. And sometimes what is is my um my sadness at how alone or not alone, but um how isolated I am in the car or how alone I am. I I have a very lone, uh not a lonely, but a very alone life now. And I used to experience it as loneliness, and sometimes I oscillate into that feeling because I am very isolated. I'm in my car for the vast majority of my day. So when I come home and I see my son, like we are playing, and I'm gonna make sure that he is at Disneyland while he's playing with me. You know, I'm throwing him up in the air, or I'm swinging him around, or he's I'm giving him piggyback rides, or we're pretending that he's Batman and I'm a hostage and he's rescuing me. I really try to maximize those moments, create those little memories with him, or I'll I'll throw a ball with him in the living room or something, you know. I don't really get to do much beyond that. My wife, she'll get to take him to like the park and things like that, but you know, both of us are really strapped. And um when it comes to the difference between the two, it really comes down to are you okay with being alone with your thoughts, with yourself, with your feelings? Lonely is where you want to get out of it, when you want to crawl out of it. When you're alone and you're okay with being alone, you still have the desire to socialize because that's an inherent need for all humans. But you are okay with that feeling because you know you can't help it right now. Whereas lonely is like my mind state three years ago, where I just wanted to, I was just hoping a car would take me out. You know, I was thinking dark thoughts, I was sad and depressed, and my car had to get anger bursts and I'd pound my steering wheel as hard as I could, and my hand would hurt. But uh, you know, it's true in real life. But sometimes, like in my case, that means being patient with being in your car alone for many, many years until you figure out a way to get out of your situation. A lot of my situation is circumstance, external to me, but I'm sure a lot of the reasons are internal as well. Maybe you know, thought loops and anxiety holding me back from applying like I should, or as well as I should, as often as I should. I'm sure there's some personal things too. So, anyways, the difference between lonely and aloneness is just being okay with what is, not in a passive way, but accepting reality as it is. Lonely, the opposite. You know, you're pulling your hair out. You can't wait to get out of the situation you're in. Um and uh yeah, I I think there's a there's a clear difference. So let's move on to topic number five. Let's see. Ooh, they have a sixth topic too. So let's see if I don't uh let's see if I don't take too long on this next one. Topic number five from Claude. So you are a diamond level Overwatch player who games with your wife to decompress. Can play, real play, be a spiritual practice? Or is that is that just something we tell ourselves to justify it? That's a good question. And in my opinion, the answer is absolutely play is a real spiritual practice. Play is the reason that we are all here. But like anything, if you are seeking to only play, you know, you can get addicted to video games, you can get addicted to any hobby, really, to escape. And when it becomes escapism, I think, in my opinion, that's when there's a problem. But for the most part, play is why we're here. Uh, what good is a play without a good villain, right? And it's just like that in life. You know, movies are modeled after real life. So when it comes to uh play being a spiritual practice, absolutely. Uh when I play Overwatch with my wife, I bring my spiritual practice into it because it's actually one of the areas I struggle with the most, uh, which is my anger. And um, I notice when I play Overwatch, uh, which is a competitive game against other live humans, like it gets really intense and you can lose your mindfulness very easily. So I try to play more mindfully, and I'm getting better and better at it. Um, you know, we all have those gamer rage moments, and they they're pretty funny upon reflection, but um, it's been a spiritual challenge of mine to bring mindfulness into my gaming. Can I be cognizant and conscious and present with every little thing that I'm doing in the game? And it actually helps calm me down. And now I just focus on my little character on the screen. You know, whatever I'm I'm doing. I I I'll take a look around in the game and look at the sky and the artwork and stuff. Wow, this is cool, you know, or the sounds, or uh just whatever I'm doing. And it just nullifies all of those jitters and I actually play better. Um, you know, it's just being with what is is always the answer across the board because that's reality, that's the present moment. When you're in your head, I how many times have we heard it? You know, even if you don't practice Buddhism or Christianity or any spiritual practice, we know this intuitively and we tell each other get out of your head about it. Get out of your head and come to your senses. How many times have you heard that? Come to your senses, keep coming back to the present moment. Don't let your mind carry you away. Keep coming back. That's all it is. And you don't need to be hard on yourself when you get carried away. You know, don't get hard on yourself. Don't get lost in the content of thought. Just notice it when you notice it and keep coming back. And notice that feeling when you come back, what it feels like to be awake again. Oh, I was lost. Man, you know, one thought, you get on like a train and it carries you for miles. And then you reel, you wake up again and you come back. And you'll oscillate and you'll flicker uh between those states all through the day. You know, you you oscillate between periods of wakefulness and when you go back to sleep and you become automated and you react. And I'll make this a quick one uh from Claude Topic Number Six. This is episode 25. If you could talk to yourself at 25 years old, knowing everything you know now about struggle and awakening and building something like this podcast, what would you say? I would say practice presence, practice mindfulness, practice being there, but above all be as present as you can with your family, with your children, especially your children. Like my son Trent, he moved out just over a year ago, and I miss him so incredibly much. You know, it's not it's not like a death, but because he's still alive, obviously, and but I I always thought I I just never thought about it. Like I always thought to myself, uh just the general mindset was he's Trent, he's your son, he's always gonna be there, you know, and I I kind of took my time with him for granted just be there as much as you possibly can for your children and your wife and your spouse, husband, your family, your mother, your siblings. The time that you have with them is so it's so finite. And you think it's forever, but it's like before you know it, the snap of a finger, you hear this from old people all the time. Life goes by in the blink of an eye, and it really does. All you have is this moment, this eternal now. So especially what would I say to myself at twenty five? Be there as much as you can with your son. As much as you can with your spouse or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or whatever, be there. Just be there. You don't have to think of anything as far as what to say or what to do, just be a presence for them. When your son is showing you his uh There was times like when Trent was younger and I was so busy with my own life, you know, and he would show me something that he built, and I always took time to look at it, and I always appreciated it, but I don't know, looking back my 42-year-old self to my 25-year-old self, if I was to like, you know, change places with myself at 25 with myself now, I would have looked at his Lego structures with so much more presence, so much more mindfulness, just absorbing the The little intricate details of of everything. You want to look at the subtleties of everything. Like my my daughter, you know, when she creates any piece of art now, I look at it very closely. We have them on the fridge. And sometimes I'll just stand there staring at it for like minutes at a time, you know? It's just life is short. It is a um this life that you have now, I mean, in this body, in this form, with your children and all the people that you have in your life, that's my final answer. I I if I could talk to myself at twenty-five, I would just be there as much as I possibly could. But just be there. Yeah. That's my final, my final answer to that. So if you guys enjoyed this episode, please let me know uh in the you know, in the app that you're in. Uh I could really use a uh a five-star high five and uh some r reviews from you guys. If you want to leave a comment, it means the world to me if you'd leave me a comment. And if you want to be on the podcast, you can reach out to me at standing nowhere podcast at gmail, and perhaps you know we could uh have you on for an episode and you can tell us about your life, your struggles, what you've learned, wisdom you want to pass on. And um with that, I will close out with uh normally I have um some sort of thing that I'll close out with with a little bit of music. So I'll go back to my uh my favorite little uh anecdote about the farmer and the neighbor. You guys have probably heard this before. I gotta get out of here soon to pick up my daughter, but I'll make it short and sweet for you. Um there is a farmer, and he wakes up in the morning to find that one of his best horses has stallions as runaway. And his neighbor at the fence he says, Wow, that is unfortunate. And the farmer says, Maybe. Later that day, the horse returns with two horses, wild horses, that it found. And the neighbor says, Hey, that's wonderful. And the farmer says, Maybe. Later, the farmer's son is trying to tame one of the wild horses, and the horse bucks him off and he breaks his leg. And the neighbor says, That's unfortunate. And the farmer says, Maybe. The next day in the morning, there's a knock at the door. The farmer opens the door to find the military. They are recruiting young men for service to go to combat, to go to war. But they are unable to recruit the farmer's son because he has a broken leg. The neighbor says, that's good news. And the farmer says, maybe. So to anyone listening, thank you for being here. Whatever's happening in your life right now, don't don't put a label on it as good or bad. Just let it be and say maybe. You don't know what's coming next. I love you guys. Thank you for listening. Blessings.