Wanzology

Miserable People Will Be Who They Are

 Well a la-tee-dah and a la-tee-dah to you. Happy Wednesday!! And if it's Wednesday, we both know that it is another episode of WANZOLOGY. How ya doing? How's it going? Hmm? The Wanz here in the house. Happy to be here, happy that you're here, and uh, we're like, turning and going downhill to finish. #THEBOOKOFWANZ, and today's chapter goes a little something like this.

MISERABLE PEOPLE WILL BE WHO AND WHAT THEY CHOOSE. JUST CHOOSE NOT TO MAKE THEIR CHOICE.

Ever found yourself around a highly negative person? Someone who can't seem to find good in anyone or anything? They always have something negative to say and are always hating on life? Ever try to change their perspective? Oh man, sometimes it's like trying to push a parked car. Keep in mind that you don't have to be like them. You don't have to be affected by them or their actions. You drive your own boat and can choose not to be around them. If you're like me, choose to stay around them and learn what you may not want to do.

It's been said, “a smart person learns from their own mistakes. A wise person learns from the mistakes of others”. Meaning, you don't have to jump off a bridge to know it might kill you. Thanks to so many who have gotten burned, I don't have to put my hand on a hot burner to know it's gonna hurt. In this particular case, it does me a lot of good to listen and watch negative people so I can hear what they sound like and the effect they have on people around them. The hope is that I recognize when I'm being or sounding like them and then make the choice to stop and act differently. Yeah, man. I mean, my dad used to say, “yo, you drive your own boat. You don't, you don't really get the chance to drive anybody else's”. And I dig that because, you know, if you're going out on a boat trip and this is an imaginary thing, if you're going out on a boat trip, you know, you got to have provisions, you got to have fuel. You got to have, you know, a way to navigate and, you know, that sort of business.

Well, your life's kind of the same way. You know, nobody leaves the house without knowing where they're going, what they'd like to do and how they're going to get there and all that other stuff. And then after you leave, it's a matter of, well, what's happening with my life? Well, this happened and that happened, and it's raining and you forgot an umbrella and…you get it. But I mean, there is almost nothing worse. Nothing worse than being around sad sack that person who ever Everything that's gonna happen is gonna happen wrong. Everything they try they're gonna fail at it's a bright sunny warm day. “Oh god. I hope I don't get skin cancer”. They used to call’em Debbie Downers on a couple of TV shows a while back But I just you know I can't get past being old and there used to be a cartoon character called bad luck Schlep Rock and bad luck just followed him like a shadow. Anything bad that was going to happen was going to happen to him at any moment, and I used to feel like that all the time. I used to feel like if something was going to fall from space and hit the earth, it was more than likely going to hit me. Didn't matter where I was, what I was doing, didn't really matter what good things were happening. I just felt bad all the time. Not just some of the time all the time. And if I was out of it, I wasn't out of it for very long, probably because I reacted to a joke or something like that. But overall, man, I was just, that's just meh. That's how my kids

tell me. ‘Meh’. “How are you feeling?”, “Meh.” It sucks. And if you, if you get the chance to actually keep an eye on someone like that for like 5 or 10 minutes, wow!! What things you could learn. Because whatever attitude they have, it's like dust. It gets on everything around them. But this dust weighs a ton emotionally, just sucks the life out of other people. And you could see him when they get in the conversation, this sad person is talking to another person. And that other person after a minute or two is like looking around for an escape route. They realized that they really just kind of stepped in something they shouldn't have. They ask the wrong person, “how are you doing”? And then there's no getting that time back because that person's just going to Bogart all your time. When you finally do get away, how do you feel? Oh my God. You just feel empty. Hopefully you can get out of that.

Luckily, I have the bothersome annoyance of always having something musical going in my head. So more times than not, I am able to get out of those positions quickly by singing “Penny Lane is in my ear and in my eye”. “Brandy, you're a fine girl. What a good wife you would be”. Yeah. There's always a song that'll get me out of it. But, before I find that song, I do what I can to stay the hell away from anybody.
Cause I don't want to get none of it on them. They didn't do anything. When it goes like days on end, I call it ‘not being fit for human consumption’. And when I'm feeling that way, I do everything I can to stay the hell away from you, whoever you may be, because whatever I'm going through, I know that it's on the inside. I know that unless I'm looking for a specific answer, and then I'll try to single out someone who may have some experience with it and who can help me, guide me, maybe remind me of something that I already know, but usually I just, yeah, put the phone in the other room and go sit and sit in the corner of the couch and watch television, waiting patiently because I know something's going to change. It always has. So I really don't have any reason to believe that it won't. Again, I just have to hang on. I have to just occupy myself with ‘in the meantime’, in air quotes.

‘In the meantime’ is always the rub for me. What to do while I'm waiting for something else to happen while I'm waiting. What do I do in the meantime? When you call up Lyft or Uber and you're waiting for the car, what do you do while you're waiting for the car? It says it'll be there in five minutes. Great. What are you going to do for four of those minutes? You're already ready to go, so what are you doing? Just walking in a circle. And that's what I mean. In the meantime, while I'm waiting, what am I going to do? And, you know, there are a myriad of things that I do. Most of them have nothing to do with any, I mean, they're just time wasters, best time in the world to check social media, best time in the world to check email or who knows, whatever life is going to happen while you're waiting for your life to happen. That's just the way it works. Something's always going on somewhere.

So what does it got to do with you? Well, that's up to you. But the last thing you want to do is be that mopey, mopey, mopey, dropey, totally sad sack person. “Everything's miserable. Here, let me tell you about it. It sucks. And this is why it just happens to me”, “it's always going to be bad.” Yeah, it probably is. I think that it's a very, very good idea to keep on tap things that make you happy, or at least make you less than unhappy. If there is such a thing, less-unhappy, you know, for me, it's like the ultimate is either dogs or toddlers.

To me, dogs and toddlers have one thing in common, they have no concept of time. None. So, everything that's happening to them is happening to them right then and there. And it's not about what happened or what's going to happen. It is all about what is happening. They seem to appreciate the moment that they're in. Dogs wag their tail and maybe want to get petted or jump on you or something like that.
Toddlers, they just toddle and move around and make noises and as long as something really doesn't threaten them or hurt them, they just go about their thing, man. They just do it. Girls and boys alike. Occasionally they want to include you and try to give you something. You know, it's like, ”why are you trying to give me this thing”? Well, they're just trying to include you in whatever is going on in their mind being that it's well underdeveloped They don't care. They just want to share it. And I think that's the coolest thing I think it's the coolest thing to have no concept of where you are in whatever process you're in because when you do that and you just let it go, that’s where you're at. Not in the past not in the future right there, right there. Listening to this podcast, you are right there, wherever there is. And while you're multitasking and doing whatever else you're doing, this is kind of playing and taking up some space in your brain. And you're thinking about whatever you want to be thinking about. Hopefully you're thinking about what the heck is this guy talking about? Well, I'm listening to the podcast right now. And that means that. I'm not stepping in a mud puddle. I'm not falling down a mountain. I'm not insert bad thing here. You don't have to be miserable. You don't have to be.

Some of us like me, we choose to be, but I know that I choose my misery. I don't mind being miserable to me. It's just one part of the pendulum swing because good things are going to happen and bad things are going to happen and the pendulum always goes back and forth. It never really stops moving because like time, it just always ‘is’ for me, I just have to remember where I'm at in the path of the pendulum. I just have to remember that I might be down right now, but I'm not always going to be here. How do I know? Same way you do. You've been there before. You already know what it feels like. You felt it before. Maybe not exactly, but boy, you know a disappointment. sadness, despair. You know what those things feel like for you? Just as much as you know, what happiness, surprise, you know what those feel like to neither one of them really lasts forever, do they? Nope.

Everything is temporary. Every single thing you can conceive of is temporary. I always love that discussion because people say, well, you know, love is not temporary. Love is eternal. Oh, really? I don't think so. I tend to disagree. Love is strong, but it doesn't always last. You can love someone, and even if they've passed away, you still love them, but you don't love them the same. You know, there was a time that you got a really good bonus on a paycheck or something, and you were really happy with yourself that you accomplished that, and then it was over. Love is, love is a good mainstay, a good beacon to keep heading towards, but by no means is it permanent in my mind. Nothing is because you know, once you stop realizing it, does it actually really exist? How do you know? No one's come back to say, “you know, I've been dead forever, but I tell you what, I still love pancakes”, “I still love otter pops”. Doesn't happen that way. Your consciousness is the awareness filter, right? And you kind of have to be here, breathing, living to experience those things. Some of those things. My mom's been gone a long time. I still love my mom, but it's not like it was. I love my brother, but he's been gone better than 26, 27, 28 years. It's just not the same as when I was six- and seven-years old sleeping in the bunk above him. Everything changes. I am of the belief that everything is temporary. So I try to respect it and get whatever I can out of

it. Right then and there. If it's bad, let's get the bad over with because I've gone through bad things just like you have had bad things happen and you've gotten through them. But the point is to go through them so you don't become Mr. or Ms. Misery. “Pain is going to happen, suffering is optional”. That's what I was told a long time ago and it's true. I've been in and will be in painful situations to suffer through them. Well, I can decide when that's over. And how do I decide? I just give it the acknowledgement that it's due. I pay respect. I honor the feeling of feeling depressed or sad or whatever. And then I wait, I’m paying attention to what's going on in the world around me. I will see someone or something that will help me reframe my attitude.

You have to get outside of yourself. In my experience, anyway, you have to get outside of yourself in order to experience what it's like to be your-self, two words. You have to get out of being yourself, one word, to better experience what it's like to be your-self.

So remember, MISERABLE PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS BE WHO AND WHAT THEY CHOOSE TO BE. JUST CHOOSE NOT TO MAKE THEIR CHOICE. Whatever you're going to do. Don't do that. For me, it's like, I'm not going to expect much that way. I'm not disappointed.

Try it. Let me know what your thoughts are. Send me an email. Wanz@thewanz.com. Better yet, just go take care of yourself. Another edition of WANZOLOGY in the books and I will see you…later.

Bye!!!