Shawna: 0:01
Hello. Welcome to the less stress family podcast, where we believe you are valuable and what you do matters. So I am Shawna Wood
Justin: 0:17
I'm Justin Wood. Hi, honey. How are you?
Shawna: 0:21
Well, I live in the South, so I'll say I'm good, but are you really what's really going on? The reality is my neck is all broken out a strip. I haven't hit my sales goal for the month, which I have like two more two more days to hit. I just got off the phone with a friend who is in the room with her father, who will be passing some time, probably before lunch today. And I have a very close family member who I spoke with, who's totally depressed because he is in the process of dying from an incurable cancer.
Shawna: 0:59
So today's topic is Life is hard.
Justin: 1:03
Life is just hard, and we forget that I think we've been trained not to think that we see everything on social media with people taking pictures from whatever, whatever they're doing, and they're all living a happy life. But then when you get to know some of the people, you do know something, people you like, Um, that's not really a very good picture. But we're basically trained or, I don't know, wired almost to think that life is not supposed to be hard. Right? But life is hard.
Shawna: 1:34
It is. it is. You have a story for us about life being hard to
Justin: 1:39
do. You know, we talk about the different generations, right? And in America, we talk about the greatest generation, which is the group that went through the Great Depression. That's also the group that fought World War Two, all right. And they sacrificed either even the soldiers who, um, not only the soldiers, but also just society. I mean, there was rationing. There were they were just coming out of the Depression. Really? After the after World War Two. Um, then you have the Cold War, and you had all the structure infrastructure, but we call him the greatest generation. Right? But they had the hardest time. Probably, I don't know, ever. But in the past 100 years, they had the hardest time
Shawna: 2:23
in recent American history.
Justin: 2:25
Yes, thank you. So living The great generation is also tied with living the hardest life. Um, in the past, you know, there's obviously people who had hard lives. There were people who were, you know, had difficult times 10 years ago where today but as a generation. And so I think, to my grandma on my dad's mom, the story that I remember talking about there she she grew up in a very poor home tenant farmers, which meant they didn't own the land, but they just worked the land. Um, and actually, he was buried. Actually, both my great grandparents buried, like, not far from here. But my grandma grew up not far, three or four miles from where, right now the house is, and I think there's some remains anyway. We'll go to that. But every year they got one pair of shoes, so most of time there barefoot and so the quality of shoes would fall apart by the spring. So my great grandfather would not by his kid's shoes until it got really cold. So if there were early frost, there was no bus school bus picking people up. If the ground was really cold and frosty and freezing early, it was just sad for them. So my grandma, yeah, so my grandma would walk to school in the frost. Right? And so you Yeah, barefoot. So, yeah, you can imagine you think about what is for, I guess, to get on the bus or our home school Kids roll out in their pajamas and start school. Imagine going walking, um, to school, barefoot in the illness frozen ground. You know, it's like a six year old seven year old. You're sending them off to school because she only went to second grade. Ah, and then she had to go home to work after that. So that's when I think of Wow, those people, the greatest generation, they lived a hard life. And that's not even counting the people around the world who have lived very difficult hard lives, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I know. When I was in Ethiopia, the some of the runners kind of have a weird run. What? When they swing their arms a lot of his cause where they live, the run to school with six or seven up to 10 miles one way. And so they learned to run in the mountains carrying books back and forth to school. So now you'll see him, like on the Olympics or whatever. You know, right. Well, to be in your country,
Shawna: 4:52
that can't
Justin: 4:53
have. But if you imagine them with a book in their hand, like or two books or three books, you're like, Oh, that makes sense. So they run 10 miles to go. The teacher to the class, that was, you know, a mud hut literally or no hut. Just open underneath the tree, you know.
Shawna: 5:09
Right. So I think, you know, listening to all of that your grandmother didn't do anything wrong is that six year old girl to have to endure that hardship, right? And that Ethiopian child growing up didn't do anything wrong, toe have to run to school carrying his books. But still, it was a hard life.
Justin: 5:30
It was a hard life, but they overcame. Right now there's something in them to go. Yeah, this maybe they didn't think of it hard. I don't know. Maybe they did, but they overcame that difficulty,
Shawna: 5:39
right? So I say to you is why we're talking about this today is that you know, I love Disney movies with the best of them. We just got Disney Plus and I may have been more excited than the kids because I was like, Oh, I get to watch Princess movies How
Justin: 5:56
many princes? Movies
Shawna: 5:58
that love that
Justin: 5:59
princess movies have been on oh, last week
Shawna: 6:01
have just had, like a Disney Princess movie marathon. But the issue is growing up in that Disney mindset. If you think about all the Disney movies, well, they always kill off the patients in the beginning Was Somebody's
Justin: 6:15
Gonna Die.
Shawna: 6:16
But there's mainly, like one problem. And after they solved that one problem, then you have happily ever after. And so I think that today the issue is that's not real life. There's lots of problems, consecutive and sometimes storms of them happening at the same time, but that in our society we have somehow equated that if I have a hard life, I must have failed in some aspect, like this is a reflection of I'm a failure. And then the next thought that people have in their heads is that I should quit. And so if you think because my life is hard means I'm a failure means I should quit. Then we have people who no longer go after their dreams because they've quit dreaming. They have terrible relationships or they just stopped there like, Oh, I've been hurt. I'm never gonna have a relationship again. Killing relationships. And really, honestly, if we take a hard, honest look at it, we have a suicide rate that is just escalating. And I think a lot of it goes back to that. They people are experiencing that life is hard and then they internalize. I must be a failure. I should just quit.
Justin: 7:29
Mmm. So, yeah, that's a lot. I think you're exactly right. It's It's a lot exactly right.
Shawna: 7:36
So solution way don't want leave everybody like life is hard This sorry podcast over S o the solution. We cannot change all of these external conditions. We just live in a broken world, and that's the reality. But we can shift our paradigms and ourselves talk. So if I have win like today, all of these different things happening if my paradigm is, you know what? Life is hard and there are a lot of good things that are just like straight blessings from heaven in my life. And it's okay that I'm experiencing this hard time because it's not an indication that I've personally failed. It's just an opportunity for me to grow and persevere is a person,
Justin: 8:29
right. It's also it's not some, uh, not an opportunity to start the blame game if if if if this place that if this president, or if whatever, whatever the blame games that people play about everything, Um, because it again, I think people it's another symptom that that the blame game that goes on is that people just don't really take Don't really grasp that. Life is just hard, right? Life has suffering. Life is just hard has suffering, regardless of how much money you make. I think that's another thing, too. If you people think if you can get to a certain level of success or certain level of something, Um, I think Kobe Bryant, right. You talk about someone who had the top of everything fame, fortune, everything you want. And there's a lot of suffering with his family right after his helicopter crash,
Shawna: 9:25
right? Absolutely. So I think the thing is recognizing that the hardness of life, the bad things are not the indicator that you have failed and remembering that they're not forever. Those issues that we come up against in life, they're not gonna it's not our forever situation and so looking for as we had talked, I think have we talked to the previous podcast about thankfulness? If not, we're going way we're recording of you these and I can't remember which taken which episode is what but remembering to focus on the things that we could be grateful for. And I take it as a personal challenge, particularly if if I am in a group of people who were all suffering together in some hardship two just ask, like, How can I How can I be the one that shifts things and makes the bright spot in this situation? How can I shift my personal perspective? How can I do something to, you know, be extra kind to someone or say an encouraging word and really feel empowered And like I have the opportunity to have some control in the situation? Not just that. I'm a victim suffering in the midst of it.
Justin: 10:44
All right? And that kind of goes back to you. I know we've talked before on some punk out. We need to make a podcast later. You don't mean cover like I don't remember. We talked. We just talked about that already. Record that but it helps me to zoom out, you know, because when you when you're going through hard times, you want to start zooming, and sometimes all the more negative things which are there. So it's not like they're not there, Right there. They are there. But to zoom out and what really helps me is honestly to hear biographical sketches and stories. People who going through harder dumps.
Shawna: 11:17
Right? So I think my grandmother Grandma Yeah,
Justin: 11:20
it was just her. Yeah, it was just her shoes. That was all. It wasn't. She wasn't that shot at you know what I mean? There wasn't, like, racial prejudice, stuff that other people at the same time we're going through, right? And so I think to keep that in perspective, that there's people today going through extremely difficult times, You think about you think about any time in history you're gonna find stories, amazing stories of people who overcame hard times. And then But there's also the reality some people just didn't overcome. They went through the hard time as best they could, and it got it, got them, you know?
Shawna: 11:54
Right. So maybe just on a positive, just say I'm just
Justin: 11:59
saying we all want the Disney Hollywood story. But sometimes when your friend or your best friend has cancer or you're a close family member has a incurable cancer. It's like there's the Disney theme song you know probably won't fit that situation,
Shawna: 12:16
right? Right. So then you have to lean on those other tools of what are the things that I could be thankful for in the situation? And what are the things that I can do to help improve other people's lives and be an encouragement to that person in the midst of the start?
Justin: 12:33
Right, Right, right, right. Yeah, Zoom out. It was him out to find positives.
Shawna: 12:38
So if you are experiencing a life is just hard kind of day. Please know that you are not a failure. And knee circumstances, whatever they are, are not gonna last forever. You are valuable and what you do matters you are also not alone. We would love to connect with you and for you to get connected with the rest of the less stress family community on Facebook. You confined us by just looking for less stress, family podcasts, and we're now on instagram. So I am Shauna Suri. would. And I just want to find our personal instagrams. Just show that would be all right. Guys, life is hard, but you could still have a blessed day And we hope that you do. Thank you.