How a Wedding in Greece Ended Years of Faking Who I Am

A trip to Greece for a wedding turned out to be life changing. In this episode, we explore how a normal trip turned into a journey of self-discovery. We dive into what it means to stop faking who you are, especially around family and your loved ones.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Okay, welcome to this week's episode of Catch Up with Kai and Cohen. I'm Kai.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

And I'm Cohen. And uh I'm back from Greece. Yeah, I was uh just talking about uh what's been going on that I don't think is it's up yet, but I made a solo episode just because I wanted to I wanted to keep the schedule.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

We changed it uh twice a week.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

I want it to go on without missing a single episode. So it'll probably be up before this. It's not that great.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

It's like so the solo episode is going up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Because I still have to like edit it, and by the time that it's edited, this one will go after that one. So it would match up the schedule, still without missing a single podcast. Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

What'd you talk about on the solo episode?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

So I talked about um for whoever's listening, now I know there's a few other people listening. Um I talked about BTS. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How how BTS literally changed my life.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah. So if anyone who's listening to this episode from the last episode, you'd know. But anyways. Yeah, hope you enjoyed that 12-minute episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

But uh yeah, how's um how's your trip to Greece? So Greece was awesome. I mean, I've traveled a little bit. I haven't traveled, I don't think I've traveled as much as you. Haven't traveled like a ton, but I've traveled a little bit. And um, I can confidently say this was the best trip of my life. Oh yeah? Yeah, this was like this was truly life-changing for me, for me personally, for many reasons. And it's it's not because of Greece, it's because of the stage of life that I'm in right now, the circumstances around me. But being in such a beautiful place definitely helped. Yeah, I I I loved Greece. Yeah, I love Greece. Yeah, felt like home to me. Yeah, like it felt like you know, like Canada's a we live in Canada, Canada is really cold. It's pretty damn cold. Yeah, for um Asian immigrants like ourselves. I don't know about you, but I don't do well with a cold. I don't do super well with the cold. What made it so so good? What made Greece so good for me was I kind of went on like a personal journey uh on this trip in Greece. So, first of all, the reason I was in Greece was because my sister got married. So, congratulations to her. Hope everything works out. Yeah, it's uh I'm excited for their future. Uh she's on vacation right now. I hope she's having a great time.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Where is she actually?

SPEAKER_00 2:37

She's I think today she landed in Italy. Oh, very good. Yeah, so we were all in Greece together, and then she stayed in. Oh, that reminds me. I forgot to buy you a souvenir. But she my sister's still there, so I texted her and she's gonna pick up some stuff. From from Greece? Uh no, from Italy. Oh, okay. So you'll get some Italian souvenirs instead of some Greek souvenirs. True, true. Um, and then my mom bought a bunch of uh fridge magnets for like co-workers and stuff, so I'll try to snag one from her for you. Yeah, so I I was there for uh my sister's wedding and it was awesome. One of the most fun weddings I've been to. I sent you some pictures of like where we were staying. Are pretty sick. Yeah, yeah. We we uh a bunch of us, you know, the family went pretty ham on the on the decorations. Like with the wedding decorations? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like like the pictures that I sent you, those were all set up by us. We didn't have yeah, we didn't have like a wedding planner or whatever, like any uh help set setting all that stuff up.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Oh wait, what literally?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah, yeah, literally. Yeah, all that stuff, like all all of those um all the flowers, candle, like everything you saw in those pictures, yeah. Aside from like you know, the tables and chairs, yeah, those are already at the at the house. At the houses. Like, was it like was this a wedding venue or was it some no this so we rented out two villas that were right next to each other, yeah. Basically one property connected, it has two villas on it. Yeah, um, and yeah, that was like our our home base, and we set up everything there. So we had like photographers, yeah, and like uh the person officiating the wedding.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

But all of the like props and stuff that you saw, that was all us.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Wait, that's such a good idea. You can just you just book out two like Airbnbs, yeah, and then just um design, organize, and host your own wedding without having to go through the venue, like the venue process. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Oh wow, okay. Well, I mean, it it make it there are difficulties with it, you know, since it's like a destination wedding, it's hard to get people out there. No, of course, yeah. Um, but I mean, yeah, like you if if this was like something you wanted to scale to locally, totally doable. Yeah, wow. And oh, good news to our listeners, I'm not sick anymore. The Greek air cured so many things for me. I'm not sick anymore. I feel amazing. Yeah, I I was telling you earlier about this, but I like bro. I fucking found myself on the beaches of Greek with a souvelaki in one hand and a luke's in the other. That's me.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yeah, how's the no you told me? So Greek salad do you think was your favorite food there? Oh, my favorite food. Or okay, yeah. What's your favorite food?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Well, I mean, so I've never I've never been like a big salad guy. Um, I like Greek salad because it has cheese in it and the vinaigrette is yummy, but I'm like not really one to order salad ever. And even at home when my mom makes like Greek salad or like someone makes Greek salad, I mean like I wouldn't make Greek salad. I'm like not incredibly excited about it. But the Greek salad I had in Greece, oh my god, that like the most the most flavorful tomato. Like, have you ever like eaten tomatoes and been like, wow, damn, this is a good tomato?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Hmm. Very rarely.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, if you say yes, I'm gonna call Cap on that.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

No, very rarely, I'd say.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

You know what? I'm gonna call you when when did you eat a tomato and think like damn, this is a good tomato?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

When I dip it on sugar. When you dip it on sugar, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

What the hell? That's like when you're making ketchup. Yeah, yeah, no, it's really good, actually. What? Wait, speaking of which, I think I told you about this before. Have you tried like oranges or mandarin with salt? No, I haven't. That's a banger. You should do that. That's legit. Okay, okay, I've got to go. Yeah, orange. And for our listeners, orange, orange and mandarin with salt, and apparently tomatoes with sugar. Yeah. One of our friends actually showed me that. Really? Yeah, when I was a little kid. Okay. Yeah. Oh, our friends. So I probably I think I know what you talk about. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, the tomate like I've never in my life, even with the most delicious pizza in front of me, thought, wow, these are some bomb ass tomatoes. Like delicious tomatoes. Tomatoes are always an afterthought for me, you know? Um, but in this Greek salad, uh multiple Greek salads, it's not like I just had one, but multiple occasions, Greek salads, there was not a single one that was bad. And the one I got in Athens, I I don't remember what uh you know what? Next episode, I'm gonna yeah, next episode I'm gonna say all of the because I don't have it with me right now, but I'm gonna compile a list of like all the six spots, like food spots I went to Greece. Was it random?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Was it random or did you did you pick up before? Did you know that you wanted to go to this specific spot?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

No, yeah, it was random. Well, not not like completely random, like for example, like some so I stayed next to our home base was just outside of this town called Lutraki. Lutraki, I think. Um Yeah, uh that was our home base, and like basically when I wanted to whenever we were in town to like get food, it would usually be like park somewhere and like walk around. Sometimes I would like look up some place and like in Google Maps and go there. But most of the time it was just find a spot at the park, then start walking around. Because the whole town is it's not massive, you know. It's like probably can get end-to-end in the town in 15 minutes of driving. Oh, really? What? Yeah, it's tiny. Yeah, it's small town. Yeah, okay. Maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe not that that small. Uh maybe like 20-30 minutes of driving. You can get like from end end to end of the town. Uh I think the population was something like I'm not gonna guess, but uh okay. I got two guesses in my mind either 60k or 200k. It's one of those. Close to those.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

That's a pretty drastic difference though. Yeah, it's one or the other. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

But but yeah, um, yeah, I didn't really like plan places to eat. It was it was it was a lot of uh spur of the moment. But yeah, like I got Greek salad at a couple places in Lutraki, got Greek salad at two places in Athens, and every single Greek salad I got, it was awesome. It was it was so good. There was like one place where the the feta cheese, I think this was probably like the cheaper way to do it, but the feta cheese was like a flat block on top of the salad, and then we had to like cut it up ourselves and like mix it and stuff. And another one, usually it was just like the feta cheese was already in the salad. But yeah, back to the tomatoes.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Wait, but have you you had you had OPA, right? Like the Greek basket. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. How's it compared to oh dude?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

I mean, I mean, I don't think OPA is that bad.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Um, opa is like okay, but it it's honestly a world of difference, even even uh where we live in Canada. You know, Canada's a a really big place. In the prairies, we got a lot of farmland, so we have access to uh to fresh food. Even if you don't live in the prairies, in the um on the coast, you have fresh seafood available. Uh all across Canada, you I'm pretty sure you have really good quality beef available, but the quality of food that I've had here does not compare to the quality of food I had consistently in Greece. In what way? Like like freshness? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like as I was saying, those tomatoes were bombed. The the onions, so flavorful. Um, the cucumbers, delicious. Everything about I mean, I'm just talking about Greek salad here, but Greek salad was so awesome. Then I had like some souvlaki. I'm a huge souvlaki fan. Over here, there's there are a lot in Canada, like there are a lot of Mediterranean spots. I think Mediterranean type food is one of the cuisines that's in my opinion pretty common in Canada. Yeah. Yeah. Um is it? Actually, I don't know. I haven't. Wouldn't you say so? Because we got like we got like swarmas everywhere, we got donors. I mean, donair is basically like a Canadian, like national Canadian.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

It was from like it was from like Halifax, wasn't it not? Like Nova Scotia or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yeah, that donair was invented. I mean like invented. Yeah. Uh created in Halifax. Yeah. But it's it's quite closely related related to like a donor kebab or uh swarma or something like that. So I I personally would say there's quite a lot of access to Mediterranean food in Canada. I mean, com compared to like other uh ethnic dishes, like I don't think you find a whole lot of probably the most like most popular or most uh common one is is Asian, like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

I mean Chinese, Japanese, Korean.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, there's a lot like yeah, there's like Indian food, there's a lot of Korean food, there's a lot of Chinese food. I mean, there's not a lot of Japanese food. There's like a bunch of sushi spots, but like those places are so expensive that like it's not like people are going to them all the time, anyways. So yeah, I would say there's a ton of Mediterranean options in or it's it's just common, more common than other places, other ethnic foods in Canada. But none of those compare to the Mediterranean, yeah. Yeah, to the Mediterranean food you get into you get in um around the Mediterranean Sea.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

I didn't ask you this yet, but uh what was the culture like? Hmm. If you I mean I guess it's too short of a time to really absorb the culture of Greece, but just from like a flavor, like a taster, what was it like?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

I don't know how to answer that really, because uh I'm not sure I experienced I don't know the the traditional Greek culture. I feel like uh most of what I did was just as a tourist.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Or I guess maybe like what's the vibe like? Because you know, in Japan when you go, the general consensus is that they're just really polite. They are really service kind of catered. Um so I was wondering what Greece is like when you try to look at it from that perspective or from that lens.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Well, I I think everyone knew that we were we were um tourists, so I I'm guessing they like treated us as tourists, but everyone was incredibly chill. Everyone was super cool.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

All the all the all the workers that were like servers or whatever um that I interacted with, they were all like super nice. Dude, people are good looking in Greece. Oh yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Are they all super fit?

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Nah, I would say there's like a pretty pretty fair like distribution. Maybe a bit more fit than like actually, yeah. I would say they're like more fit than like North America for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Um but yeah, it's not like everyone was like jacked. But yeah, I uh that probably has to do with like the their diet, you know, having access to like good fresh food, stuff like that. But yeah, people were like super, super chill, everyone's super nice. I'm sure part of that is also like how you yourself how you carry yourself in those like situations. Like if you're like if you're like an asshole tourist, then you're gonna get treated like an asshole tourist. Yeah. But my general opinion was like the people are quite nice there.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

And one thing I noticed is like people are like really it's everything is like so chill there. What does that mean? Like um the the work, the attitude towards work for the most part is pretty chill. Like when we went to for example, um on Google Maps, when you're like looking through places, uh, they'll have like their the time that they close by, which usually says something like 3 a.m. or something like that. But that's not a that's not a strict or like hard closing time. It's just whenever or whenever in the night business starts to die down, that's when they close. So if if it's like 3 a.m. and your pizza shop is popping, it's not closing at 3 a.m. You know, it's closing, it's closing when everyone comes out.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

And and similarly, if it's like your closing time is listed at what like 3 a.m. Yeah. I I keep saying 3 a.m. because a lot of them were listed at 3 a.m. Yeah. Yeah, if your closing time is listed as 3 a.m. and ain't nobody around at and it's like 1.30, you're probably gonna close out and shop. Which is I I we experienced this. This was like a couple nights. I was going into the town with uh some of the in-laws, and we went we just wanted to get food, and there was like a pizza place. Uh first of all, everywhere we went to was like closed. It was it was like 2 30 or 2 a.m. or something, and uh walked by the seawalk in Lutracki, and basically everything's closed. There's like a cafe and a bar open, but they weren't serving food. And then we we walked over to this pizza shop, and the lady was just closing up. Like she had just closed up and she was about to get on her scooter, and she and I like tried to open the door, and I was like, Oh, and she's and she was on her scooter and she's like, Oh, sorry. We just closed up, and then she's telling me, like, oh, go here, they're open 24 hours.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Yeah, or like 24 hours.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, she sent us like this casino. Casino, oh yeah, there's there was this like grill uh food truck outside this casino and it was 24 hours. Yeah, so then we ended up picking up food there, but yeah, uh, because of that, I would say at least in that town, Dutraki, where we were staying, it was it felt like the attitude towards like work and stuff like that was quite chill. Um and also tipping is not a thing in Greece, which is yeah, which is something I noticed um in a lot of places.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

I think it's a North American thing. Like when I when I was in Europe, like in um Portugal, Paris, culture isn't really there unless you're at a very touristy place. And then Asia for sure, you don't tip either. So I think that's like a North American thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, it's a North American scam. Yeah, tipping is the stupidest fucking thing ever conceptualized by anyone.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

The only argument against that is that I know a lot of restaurants, like base pay is very low. So servers make their money through tips. Yeah, that's wrong, man. No, it's wrong. Yeah, it shouldn't be like that. But unfortunately, it then that's why the argument is that oh, we should they should tip because that's that's necessary.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah, but then but you know, we've talked about similar topics to before, for example, with music, yeah, with um these TikToks, that being the new the new wave and contributing to like deconstruction of music or something like that. You know, it's it's bringing it down to a lower level than it could be because everyone is participating, and I want to apply that to tipping. You know, by tipping, we're also participating in this shitty culture and kind of endorsing it by participating in it. I guess we're talking about talking about tipping now, and I know this is a quite contentious Wait before we move on.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah, just to close it off, yeah. Why do you think you're a different person after the trip? Well, you know why, because we talked about this, but uh to summarize it maybe into a few sentences.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Yeah, it probably won't be a few sentences, but here we go. So in previous episodes, I've talked about I've talked with you about not just in episodes, but in private. You know, I've talked a lot about you know the identity crises that I've faced, um, two big ones in my life leading up to this point. And um I guess I never really exposed this, it was just the last one. But you know, changing career paths, changing goals, essentially not having a goal after my last venture into league and stuff like that. I have felt quite lost. Yeah, and um and I talked about losing confidence in myself, not being that same confident person that I was in the past because it was tied to this identity and the success that I had and security that I had in that position. And once I didn't have that, I felt like a completely different person, like not confident, not believing in myself anymore. Basically, imposter syndrome turned to the max. You know, I I mentioned my struggles with imposter syndrome in the past. This was basically the ultimate form of it where I was like, wow, wherever I you know, I I never really wor vocalized this, but what I truly felt was wherever I did end up getting in life, it was all it was a fluke. You know, I wasn't actually a fucking awesome guy, which is wrong. I am a fucking awesome guy. Wow, it feels stupid saying that. Yeah, I had I had this struggle where I basically didn't uh wasn't happy with myself, yeah, you know, didn't believe in myself to put it in as simple of words as I can. I basically didn't love myself. And after I went to Greece, you know, a lot of stuff happened uh with my family, uh with my in-laws, and I kind of just started taking some risks, uh risks I wouldn't have taken before. And what I mean by that is I started being myself more around my family and these people that are new family because my my sister married someone and you know the in-laws, they're they're family now. And yeah, I I basically just started saying and doing things that I knew that I wanted to say and do before, but I was too scared. Yeah, I was I was scared to say these things before because I was afraid of how it would be received by like, for example, my parents, you know, um vocalizing my opinions to them, even though I've mentioned in the past that my relationship with my parents is quite good now, and it is. It wasn't as good as I mean, it was really good, but now my relationship with my parents is amazing. I don't know if it could get better than this.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah, so it sounds like you had a lot of fear of being able to express yourself and be true to yourself to the ones who are the most closest to you. Yeah, and that was limiting your ability to once again be yourself. But you took uh took a dare, it sounds like I took a step to do that on a trip and it went well. Yeah, super well. It went beyond your expect expectations. Now you just have you don't you no longer have that burden on your shoulders to try to hide yourself away from from the ones you love, basically.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Yeah, totally. It was it was like I was scared of rejection ultimately, you know, like being my true self in front of uh my family and these new friends. Um honestly not so much the new friends, it was really just about the family, my immediate family, my parents and my sisters. Right. Yeah, I will I I guess I was scared that they would think I'm like weird, you know, if I was this isn't like some crazy stuff. It was just you know, I've had a tense in the past, I've had a tense relationship with my parents, and it made it difficult to joke around with them. And slowly I've been like joking around a bit more. And again, I want to say my relationship with my parents even before this uh trip to Greece and my sisters. I have I've had I have uh even before this trip, I had pretty good, pretty solid relationships. Yeah, but now it's just uh over top that I'm I'm like this is what I really dreamed of. Yeah, you know, yeah. The kind of relationships that I dreamed of having with my my parents and my sisters. I feel so loved, you know, so happy. And I'm not I'm not faking any of I didn't fake anything on this trip. I didn't say things I didn't want to say, I didn't do things I didn't want to do, I didn't fake my personality. I really didn't, as you know, from the things that I told you. I I just bared it all, was true to myself, and it went so well, and that made me so happy.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah, happy for you.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

So overall it's uh life-changing it was quite literally.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Yeah, this was quite literally life-changing for me. I truly feel like I I I found myself. The confidence that I had previously was tied to something else, you know, something external, something that I was doing but was not really a part of me. But the confidence that I have now is just in myself. Seeing the reactions of uh my family to certain events, hearing the things that they say about me, like I I mentioned to you before how on multiple occasions in these past two weeks my parents talked about how proud they were of me, how how good of a son I was to them, how happy I made them, uh, my sisters also tons of times, which makes me so happy to think about, talked about how good of a brother I am to them. They were constantly saying that I'm the only brother I have, but they were saying I'm the best brother and yeah, I'm such a good brother. And they was talking and you know, they told so many stories about times where I came through to pulled through for them and things that I didn't really think much about or don't even think about at all anymore. But I think in those moments, you know, when I did those things, of course I wanted them to notice and I want I wanted them to I wanted my actions to matter. Yeah. And this was like confirmation that my actions did matter. And and th the those things were just me, you know. And being being accepted like that, so lovingly, so why was the greatest feeling of my life. And I'm just I I feel so good now. I feel like I'm actually.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

You look a lot more, you look happier. Yeah, don't I? I'm smiling all the time.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Uh yeah, yeah. Like I said to you before, I was looked in the mirror. I've been I'm like looking in the mirror nowadays and thinking, wow, that's a good looking guy. And I wasn't thinking that for a long like I used to, yeah, when I was super confident, I was like, damn, that guy's hot. That's a handsome looking guy. Yeah, but then I stopped thinking that way and I thought I you know didn't really think much of myself, and now it's like I'm I'm him again. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, it's fucking awesome, dude. I I feel I feel so I've I feel like a new guy. I feel like that guy, like I was telling you before. I I feel like that guy again, but it's not fake, it's just me. Yeah, exactly. My my identity and my confidence is just coming from within now. I think this is gonna last.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

I hope so.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yeah, I think it will. Yeah, uh yeah. Um super, super happy, super content with myself. Um, one one uh just one quick story. The the one I told you about earlier. The thing that really pushed me over the edge, the the first risk I took, it was uh having the first night we were in Greece, it was just my family. The in-laws had not flown in yet. And uh we were just at dinner, and um my dad uh we were talking about our past, my past, having like a nice conversation with my parents and my sisters. My dad said something, it was uh just some random stuff, and I replied with a joke. And before I told that joke, it was like time stopped. You know, it's like when you're playing volleyball really. What do you mean time stopped? Like, why would time stop? It was like a crossroads for me because in that moment, it was in that moment I thought so much when my dad said that said what he said, and then I was I was preparing to follow it up with a joke, yeah, and time stopped because I started thinking, like, this joke is gonna happen. I'm gonna say it. It's either gonna go really well, and my dad's gonna love it, or he's gonna think I'm an idiot, and that's gonna like set the tone for the rest of the trip. And then I fired off this joke right before anyone else laughs. My dad starts howling. Yeah, I've never made him laugh, I've never even heard him laugh.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Wait, what?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Well, I've heard him laugh. I've never heard him laugh this hard in my life before. Let alone make my it's me who's making him laugh this hard. And yeah, once that happened, I'm like, I'm off to the fucking races, dude. That was like the dam was open, and from that moment on, I I just started taking that risk over and over, saying what I wanted to say, trying to trying to make my dad laugh, trying to make my mom laugh, yeah, and trying to make everyone laugh. Yeah, uh, I just stopped holding back after that moment. The whole trip, I didn't if I wanted to say something, if I felt something, if I believed in something, I followed through with that. If I thought something was the right thing to do, I did that. I I mean this sounds ridiculous, you know. Don't you think? Like, oh, obviously an adult should know right to wrong.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

I feel like um no, I feel like a lot of people in the world who are likely um facing the same struggles and challenges. I I bet it's pretty common.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

I bet it is too. Yeah, I think it sounds ridiculous because I, you know, if you're someone like me in this situation, you think you kind of try to minimize your problems. Yeah. So in that sense, it sounds ridiculous. Yeah, yeah. But but I but I agree. I think a lot of people are probably in a similar situation. And you know, I'm I'm not gonna say if things are tough, you start joking about it and you know, rip off some jokes with your parents and see how that goes. Because there's a lot of nuance to this, it took a lot of building up to this. But I will say nothing has felt as good for me as just being myself and how I feel now.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Even with your past success with League.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

100%. Yeah. Because the person you spend most time with is yourself in your entire life. You know, you're at at the end of the day, you're all you've got, you've you're everything you've got, or at least that's the way I see it. Of course, it's different like you have your partner and stuff like that, but just my thinking is you're with yourself 24 hours a day. You know, life is so much harder when you're not happy with yourself for those 24 hours a day. So once you once you do get there, it's just amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Was that the question you asked? I I I got lost a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

That that was essentially the question that I asked. Yeah, like how how basically the question I asked was um, how has this trip to change your life? To be honest, like I I did not expect this. Me neither. I thought, I thought you were just gonna go on a wedding trip, have a blast, come back, and just say, Oh, the food was good, weather's great, Greece is amazing, but then you come back and your whole identity is like strength, like strengthened.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

I mean, what's your so what's your um what's your initial perception of this? So you haven't have not seen me since I came back from Greece. You saw me, we hung out for like an hour before this. Yeah. So what has been your impression so far? Of am I different? Do I seem different?

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Well, you seem happier. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. I said this multiple times, but I always thought you were confident, so that never really changed for me, but definitely happier, definitely brighter. Yeah, yeah, like 100%.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

I feel that way. Yeah, I really I really do. Yeah, I don't I don't feel like I'm faking it anymore. Because I I think I mentioned um when you brought it up that you still thought I was like a confident guy. Yeah. Uh I said I said um I'm not, but yeah, I can still be that guy on the outside, you know, essentially faking it because it was it would be easier for me to fake it.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

So you were you were faking it before.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Oh yeah, totally, man. I'm not I'm like what am I supposed to I didn't I didn't find much reason to have that confidence anymore because everything was tied, you know, my my success was tied to uh league, my money was tied to league, my conversations were tied to league, like whatever I did was okay, maybe not my conversations, but um okay, my money and that was my work, and you know that's a big part of who you are, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Yeah, but I don't think you should well I don't think you have, but I don't think you should blame yourself for feeling like your confidence essentially got demolished after it didn't work out with League of Legends because quite literally you spent almost a decade towards that life and it came down falling down, and then that's why it's not a surprise for you to feel that way. And and it probably happens to so many people who are chasing a dream, especially in sports. So and it's probably such a difficult thing to experience. Like I can't fathom to be honest for myself because I never gone through that position, but I can see at least, or I can try to understand um how you feel or how you felt throughout this time.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Yeah, and I think I think the the big the big issue with all of this for me was my confidence. I I guess my confidence originally came from that in the first place. You know, I never felt um happy with who I was. Um even growing up, I guess like there were like external things that gave me confidence. For example, being in student council, being uh being uh getting good marks. It was those things that or being good at sports, being fast, uh playing soccer, playing volleyball, whatever the fuck. Or sorry, I didn't play I didn't play those back then, but um yeah, being in track, doing high jump, those are things that I did, and like being good at those things, that's what gave me confidence. Um getting good marks, I think I mentioned. But it was never like about who who I am as a person. Um and the difference now is it is about who I am as a person. I'm I'm proud of who I am and I'm happy with who I am. Um I feel good about who I am.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it sounded like you were almost um you're you were living on external validation from your achievements, like you were challenger for for so long. That's something that a lot of people could never fathom obtaining themselves.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you remember, but like back when we were in high school, that was a big deal. No, yeah, that was that was quite important.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

I remember telling like friends that you don't know, like that I met later in Adult Hidden, and I and I tell them about you, and they're like, What challenger? And I'm for me, I don't even know what that means.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

I was like, uh Yeah, dude, I remember there was um uh just a random story. There was like in grade in grade 10, I would like play um with some friends, and they would have like some older church friends that also played League of Legends, and then if they like invited me into like the custom game, yeah, they would all like freak out, be like, holy shit, challenger guy, what the So yeah, it was a big deal back then.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

And um Is it still a big deal?

SPEAKER_00 31:26

I have no idea. Oh, okay. Uh I mean I I have like a uh buddy in town that's pretty high rank. Haven't talked to him in a while, but yeah, I don't know if it's a big deal anymore. So because I look at like the pro live stream, I think it happens on weekends. Back in back in the day, it was getting like like 400k plus viewers, stuff like that. On on um on like Twitch and YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah. I think combined it was I mean back in the heyday, it was probably for the North American league, probably getting like in playoffs, like close to a million views, something like that. Yeah, like regular season, probably a couple hundred thousand. But like you check now what the regular season is getting. I don't even know if it's I think it's playoffs right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

What are what are playoffs? Like, is this the world championship or whatever?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

No, no, it's just like the regional leagues, like North America, Europe, they all have like their playoffs, and then top three from playoffs or something go to the world championship. But yeah, like uh viewership now sucks. It's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Is it because there's a lot of other games that are just as popular? Oh you know what?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

We should do an episode where I list I go over all the reasons League of Legends sucks. All the reasons why pro professional playing League of Legends sucks. It's control so it's controlled by Riot Games, who owns uh owns League of Legends. Yeah, and they made so many terrible decisions, they've like single-handedly killed the scene, made it so hard for anyone to break in. Yeah, we totally should do an episode about all the all the stupid things. I will be able to like answer all the questions you've ever had about League and why this game and the people that run it are so terrible.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

So the question, I remember you telling me that um the the world championships happen in New York this year or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Are they? I think they are. Yeah, something like you were in Vancouver for one of the yeah, last yeah, last year I went to MSI, which is the midseason MSI stands for the midseason invitational, and that happened in Vancouver last year, and I went there with a couple uh a couple of our friends.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

So are you going to New York this year?

SPEAKER_00 33:30

I don't know. America's kind of scary, you know. So I haven't been to America. I don't know if this is the right place to talk about this. Haven't been to America in a while.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Uh had the opportunity to go for a couple things, but I declined because things are kind of scary over there.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

But your sister lives there.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

My sister does live there, yeah. So I'm I am constantly worried about her, and I, you know, keep up with her and stuff like that. Make I like I check in with her almost every single day. I talk to her husband a lot too, because they both live in America.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

I was in Miami. Yeah. I think now a couple months ago. Yeah, at the airport. There's like ICE officers there.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

That's crazy, man. That's crazy. And personally, you know, I'm not a white guy.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

That scares me.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

No, yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

It's especially I don't get it, but I can see where you're coming from. And I mean, I'm saying that as like someone that could like how do I say this? I look quite western, I think.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

And even even um as someone who looks quite western, I still fear for bad situations, getting racially profiled, yeah, getting caught up in some racist power trip. So so if I was someone that, you know, wasn't so ethnically ambiguous, I would be even more scared, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

That's fair. That's fair. Yeah, I mean, one of my best friends lives in Seattle. When I asked her about it, she said she wasn't as worried. But that's because she says she's married to my other to the other friend who's white.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Yeah. So maybe. Yeah, my s so my sister's also married to a white guy, which I mean helps, I think. Yeah. My sister also looks very western, I think. My oldest sister, even more so than me. But yeah. So will I go to the world championship? Uh thought about it. Said like a soft yes to friends. Dude, do you want to go?

SPEAKER_01 35:19

When is it?

SPEAKER_00 35:20

I think it's uh usually in fall. So like September, October, November, around that.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

If it's September, October, I'll be down. If it's November, I can't go. Okay. November, I think I'm planning to go to Hawaii with my wife or my sister or my brother-in-law. Okay. But no, I I've never been to New York. Yeah. So I actually really want to go to New York.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Oh, yeah, okay, we're okay. Maybe we'll do that then.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah. But about that's only if it's in September, October.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it well, it will be. So the world championship usually runs from two-ish months, something like that, because it's it's just so long because there's like the wild card qualifiers or like uh play-ins, whatever they call it nowadays. Then after that, there's like groups. I don't even know if there's group stages anymore. Group stages or like Swiss stage or something like that. And then they get to like the playoff bracket, which is like top eight, stuff like that. And uh so yeah, the world championship takes a really long time. So I think usually it's it's two out of the three months of September, October, November.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yeah. Okay, yeah. I'd be down. I'd be saying, Yeah, okay, Word word.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Yeah, maybe we'll do that then.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Yeah, well, would you look at the time?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Oh, we're already up. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

We're already up. You know, I actually had a whole bunch of things planned. Okay, we'll do that next time. I'm sorry, I was not at all good.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Um later finding myself in.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Yeah, no, I I had some topics I wanted to talk about just can just in case we couldn't fill the time, but yeah, I think that was a pretty good conversation.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Yeah. Pretty deep, I'd say. Uh-huh. Yeah. In case you guys were so busy listening and forgot. Cohen also did a 12-minute solo episode, so don't forget to watch that, to listen to that one.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Oh, yeah, it's kind of oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Yeah, it'll work out. But we should I c I kind of I kinda like this. Maybe I'll try one of those too.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Yeah, yeah. You should give it a try. It's depth, it's way harder because uh there's no feedback.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

I had no idea you were gonna do a solo episode. I thought this episode, because I was gonna say at the start of the show, I was gonna be like, well, uh, you guys are caught up to us now because you know, we recorded a couple episodes that were like pre-recording, yeah, like a couple weeks behind. So now you guys are live with Kingho, and like this is actually what's happening in our lives. But I guess you're uh we're we still got some buffer.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Yeah, it was because when you were away, I made the decision to make it by uh twice a week, like Tuesday Thursday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I might I might even switch it to Monday to Thursday. Because that's like a that's like a bigger buffer, you know what I mean? Like Tuesday to Thursday, it's only like it's only one day in between. Yeah. So I might do Monday to Thursday. Yeah. So maybe I'll upload the um the solo episode I did tomorrow. And I can do the yeah, and I can change the schedule from Monday to Thursday.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

I like it. Yeah. New episodes Mondays and Thursdays. You heard it here first from Cohen.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Well, I think that's everything from us. Um, thank you for tuning in, whoever is listening. I know apart from my wife, there are actually people who listen to this. Um, so yeah, we'll talk to you folks next episode.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

And thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Yeah, and we'll we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

See you next time. Peace.