Sad Boyz - Adulthood

Episode Date: June 3, 2018

Today on Sad Boyz we're talking about Adulthood, that thing that happens to all of us whether we like it or not. We first define what we think it means to be an adult and discuss our journeys into adulthood, misconceptions and all and we answer the age old question of whether or not we miss being kids. Also in this episode, the boys are back from their birthday trip, jordan needs a new online handle and jarvis is keeping his head up despite having a stressful couple of weeks. Thanks to Sad Fam Vanessa Chen for recommending this topic!

In a way, all of our episodes are thematically tied back to adulthood. Yeah. Because it's just like, hey, how's your social anxiety? Well, it's difficult because I'm an adult and things are hard when you're old. Yeah, it's like, I went from having to think about one thing, which was breathing, to thinking about everything. I don't want to underestimate this. I was carried.

People would pick me up and take me to another location that I needed to be at. And when they weren't picking me up, they were rolling me. I was either asleep or being pampered. I was either being massaged or not awake. Yeah, first they stopped feeding me directly. Then I had to feed myself. Then I blink and they kick me out of the damn house. Welcome to Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. And I'm Jordan Cope, but I'm a musical now. Oh, are you going to be like a musical for like the whole episode?

Yep. Until all the listeners leave. Oh, what's that? Oh, they're already gone? Yeah. Wow. that makes sense i guess we can go back to talking normal i was about to leave myself today it's just the boys just these little boys so it's been about two weeks since our last recording we're both back from um from our birthday trip to la and dallas i have fully forgotten how to do the show i've fully forgotten

where i am it's actually remarkable like what this is 24 24 episodes yeah this is episode 24 i adore this show it is it is a privilege that i get to do this on a recurring basis for the life of me i don't remember how to do it ever every single time we pick up these microphones i think to myself like it feels like my dad made it it feels like my dad did all the previous episode and he's like hey i pass this on to you me in the future i mean to peel back the curtain a little bit every time we start i have to confirm the the like phrase that i say at the beginning and it's like i know it but for some reason it's like um it's when you're in line with somebody at you know uh like a restaurant and it's a long line and you're just like chatting with people and they're like oh what are you doing

it's like oh i i'm a comedian and they're like oh well tell me a joke like that's what it feels like it feels like someone's putting me on the spot and your brain just evacuates all applicable information yeah i'm like uh uh boys, welcome to the podcast. Hello of boy sad. My name's Justin, and this is a podcast about failings. And nothing else. And nothing else. I hate you, and sorry not sorry.

I hate you, humble brag, sorry not sorry. Today, we are talking about adulthood. The curse we're all struck with yeah so we're going to talk about i guess the transition the life transition that happens when you are no longer under the the tutelage the the pot of one chip the pot of one chip the purview the the direct care do you want me to get a thesaurus? Yeah. Are we good? Sorry, I'm reading a thesaurus. It says Padawanship right here. When you're out on your own, when you have independence as an adult, typically around 18, and then you're kind of thrust into the world.

Some people go to college. Some people go directly to work. That's a monopoly space, right? Yeah. You land on the space. Some people go directly to jail. Some people go directly to work. That's like, that's a monopoly space, right? Yeah. Some people go directly to jail. Some people do not pass go. Go directly to work. Go directly to work.

Do not go to college. It's insane. I get that five days a week. Every single morning I wake up, I roll my dice. It's like, go directly to work again? Geez. Very unlikely that that would happen. But yeah, I think that there's a lot of value in us talking about this transition for us

as people who are a few years into this um ourselves you know and that it's funny how being an adult feels like a type of proficiency like oh man i'm getting close on figuring all of this out i've been working on it for about five years getting closer every day right oh dang i forgot to eat yeah yeah it's like oh you just didn't do it right and i think it i think it is a proficiency and we'll talk about why we we think that um and and what our experiences were a bit later in the show but first jordan how was your week my week specifically jordan cope or one of the listeners how was how was one of our listeners weeks jordan if there there has to be a listener called jordan right just statistically oh yeah i mean maybe if there is jordan i don't

even care if you have a twitter account tweet asap tweet to the sad boys account at sad boys pod i want to know if we have uh any jordan listeners because frankly they're my favorite ones no question no jordan not one of our listeners how How was your week? Jordan Cope, co-host, lesser co-host of Sidekicks. Sorry. Excuse me. Sidekick boy. Absolutely excuse you. I may say it, Jarvis.

Huh? What? It was, man, my week's good. Yeah? Maybe people can tell. I'm pretty tired. No, I don't think anybody can tell. Welcome to Drowsy Boys.

I am a sleepy young man. I think we talked about this before, but we're pretty bad judges of how our, I guess, physical state, you know, being tired affects the show. No, I am constantly paranoid that I'm off base whenever I do the show. And then it comes out and people think it's fine. I'm like, wait, but I was so peckish yeah you didn't detect that you didn't you didn't detect that i had a grilled chicken sandwich for lunch waiting for me yeah it's like

but you see if you understand that my joke would have landed a lot better how to eat the steak um yeah i'm overall pretty good um i actually have uh both a question and a request Oh The question is directly to you And then the request depends on your answer So my name on most of social media Yes Jordan Adika

A-D-I-K-A That's right I used that because it was the name I used on social media Or specifically in like gaming spaces growing up I would either just be Adika or Jordan Adika or Jay Adika If that wasn't available Right And it's my middle name Kenyan Heritage um and i've used that for many many years

so i have it as like a legacy name on things like steam blizzard etc etc right now due to my job having a decent amount of external visibility and working with a lot of people over email or appearing on other shows or collaborating with people or just getting referenced sometimes right right and wanting to keep my personal life fairly private i changed most of my social media names to jordan adika right as a result my facebook is jordan adika twitter jordan adika etc etc but this has had a peculiar impact in that now my steam and blizzard name is just my name which Which is the most wild shit. Nobody's ever done that. No human being has signed up for a gaming service,

an online gaming service, and just put their name. That's nuts. It's like, what's your gamer tag? And you're like, John Smith, thank you very much. I don't want to play with you. Are you going to hurt me? Is this dad? It's just so odd.

So my first question was, do you agree that that is strange? Because I feel very weird about it. You know, it's 2018, and I don't think it's that strange. You're right, I'm woke. Yeah, no, well, I guess where I'm coming from is I started my YouTube channel last year, and I was going through how I wanted to brand it. Yeah. And I decided to go with just my name. And that is in contrast to what the actual username of the YouTube channel is,

which is the name of a RuneScape account that I made it for. Because I made that YouTube account, like YouTube.com slash Jarvis Johnson. Many moons ago. Many moons ago to post a RuneScape PK video. And so my username there is vsympathyv because in RuneScape I had like a V and like a space and then you could

see like sympathy. And I thought it was like cool you can have like one word you know like. And that's the word you chose? Was that something you were trying to cultivate? Sympathy? I have no idea why I chose that name how do people to treat me i uh i mean empathy love i think my other runescape usernames are okay so runescape for those who don't know is a game that is like world of warcraft but worse and uh it's a game that i spent many moons playing as a young one and it is honestly where all of my online like persona like comes from like

my magic jarvis is was my main on runescape i named myself magic jarvis because i played magic gathering in my middle school and my name was jarvis and i didn't know how mmorpgs worked so i was like i'm gonna let my friends know that this is the Jarvis that they play magic with. That's like how an algorithm would generate your name. It would look at your Facebook likes and then your first name. They're like, oh, cool Jarvis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hamilton Jarvis. Hamilton Jarvis, yeah.

Star Wars Jordan 11. Yeah, that's basically, yeah, that's how an algorithm would generate my name. But yeah. So my other runescape names were like 00baller00. What? Yeah. Like basketball? I don't know.

Anyway, what I'm saying here, Jordan, is it is not weird for you to have your normal ass name as your gamer tag. Well, let me follow up. Let your freak flag fly, my man. Thanks, dude. I mean, I like it just fine. Every now and again, I will play, you know, hey, don't get me wrong. I play flawlessly at Overwatch. I've never actually made a mistake or played poorly. But people will often, for some some reason say that i am i don't know if it's maybe like some kind of prank that's going on i think they're just jealous they'll often say like

hey your reinhardt appears to be rushing in despite no other heroes being around i personally don't think i've done that but bizarrely for some reason people think i do make mistakes on overwatch and for that reason sometimes they will just type jordan what the hell are you doing that kind of stuff they take your full name jordan my social security number how do they get my blood type now for a modest fee of i think about 10 or 15 bucks i can change my blizzard name so my overwatch representation will change i want the fans the listeners wait so this was all to figure out what you should change your overwatch name to are you implying that i'm leveraging our fan base exclusively for my own personal gain but not even your own personal gain in like a grandiose sense but really in a very narrow oh yeah it's

very petty yeah don't worry about that okay uh i would love for people to tweet directly at either the sad boys account or me personally i'd prefer me personally so i see them all uh at jordan adika if you could believe it single word um reach out to me and tell me what you think my new steam and blizzard name should be my vote is for emotional pervert just oh that's so good though yeah okay people follow up with alternative suggestions alternatively i will go with that because because with uh with Because with Blizzard names, you just have like a random number at the end. And so you get your display name as whatever you want.

That's why on Steam I'm Jimmy Piss. That is 100% the case. No further questions. How was my week? What was that? We got a little off track, but Jordan, your week, other than the Overwatch thing,

other than the online screen name thing. It's really hard to imagine anything but that, but Jordan, your week, other than the Overwatch thing, other than the online screen name thing. It's really hard to imagine anything but that. But yeah, my week was good. As I mentioned, I am at max drowsy boy right now. And I was thinking about it today because it's been maybe three, four days since my energy just went straight through the floor. My blood sugar feels like it's ultra low. Oh, damn. I'm not sleeping great, but that's not necessarily correlated.

I generally don't sleep super well. But I've been thinking about it a lot today as I was walking around feeling kind of drained. And I think I know why. Oh. And it's something that I wanted to share with the audience. Because it's the kind of thing that I want to be witnessed. It feels like an interesting insight into myself. And this is a nice place to share that.

Right, right. So I very recently uh hit a goal at work that without going into too much detail um is is very positive it means a lot of good things for my my placement in the company thank you i'll take that fist bump pop that in my pocket save it for later what i need my fist back this is gone you jerk i can't grip uh but like uh by the way if it ever feels like i'm being weirdly clandestine with my work this is to the fans i want to tell you everything i want to share all things with you all the time and it jazzes me up when you share things with me a lot of my work

involves third parties and for that reason i can't always share names and specifics yeah so similar stuff with with my work exactly just like can't talk we have have a very public-facing company, and as a result, occasionally there will be things that we can't really divulge, but we can reference our emotional states as a result of those things. Because then it's just like everybody's experience. Yeah, precisely. And I personally have a lot of hang-ups around the idea that my job performance and comfort at my job is directly correlated to my safety

because, obviously, immigration. Now, a lot of it's irrational. I'm just obsessed with the idea that i always have to be doing as good as possible or else i'm immediately going to get fired and i lose my life i'm fully aware with those types of fears despite the fact that mine don't even end with me leaving the country they just involve me staying in the same country and being a failure they result in social exile yeah yeah i it's i live in a glass box where everyone can point and laugh about how I have failed to live up to no one's expectations of me.

Yeah, you in 2025 is actually an unaired episode of Black Mirror. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. But because that's such a fear for me, I will often tie a lot of self-worth to my work performance. And until very recently, I had not realized how ham i was going right i have been

obsessed with work for the best part of about six months yes like really aggressive basically the entire life cycle of sad boys almost right right and this last uh in the last week i hit a an okr a thing we have at a lot of companies, that for me personally, it was a personal metric. An objective key result. Or an Oklahoma key role play. Nose is bleeding. Sorry.

For me personally, it represented that I had met this personal goal that I'd set for myself. And hitting that goal for me, some part of me went great now I can die everything just fell apart I am so tired I am so dumb so dysfunctional like socially I don't pop I am not like uh the jordan i'm used to and i think it's because my my energy is crashing and eventually will begin to rise again but i'm getting that phoenix from the ashes exactly i'm pre-rise yeah right now you're crashing on hbo with b home and soon you'll be the order of the phoenix oh it's very good i wish i could play with you, but I'm so sleepy.

For one, I'm proud of you. For two, I think this rest is going to be good for you. And then you're going to emerge with a newfound energy and hopefully a newfound perspective. And we've talked about this. We just got back from our birthday trip a couple weeks ago and i think one big piece of that was was talking a lot about this kind of stuff and i don't want to put any words in your mouth regarding it but oh oh what the you just put a bunch of words in my mouth sorry i just have the scrabble set here you had that thesaurus from earlier yeah

ouch i'm just big into words uh i will say like if you are interested In seeing a little bit more detail about our special Birthday trip you can head over to Jarvis' channel That's right To see the Latest vlog Yeah you can go to You can go to youtube.com slash Jarvis Johnson

But if you're feeling randy you can go to Youtube.com slash user Slash vsympathyv You're in a spicy mood. Yeah, I'm looking to change that soon, actually. I figured out a way out. Change to Jordan Adiko. Yeah.

That's going to be free very soon. I'll let Jordan cope. Emotional Purve is going to be off the menu, though. Yeah, Emotional Purve is off the menu. But yeah, overall, I'm feeling good, but I feel as though I don't have enough in my emotional reservoir to feel as good as I want to. Does that make sense?

Yeah, you're going to get that back. But I totally, I totally hear you. I totally hear you. I've been in that position before. It's like when you lay it out on the field and you're like essentially like panting on the like, your team just won the game. Yeah. And you're just like on, you're on the green and you're like just like sweating and panting

and like trying to take it all in. That's the funny thing about catharsis, right? Like you set yourself up to expect that it comes with the completion of X goal. But for me, maybe the same for you. I most often feel it three to four days after, or at moments where I feel really comfortable.

Like if I'm, I just turned on the shower and I'm about to get in and I see my reflection. Dude, I thought of that exact same scenario. Holy fucking shit. We're fucking shit refusing god damn it it there's something about that like the shower is exciting and i'm ready to get in there but i'm also looking at myself and i'm going you just you nailed it you got this one kid you done

knocked it out the park this time and i yeah that that in a couple days i'm sure i'll feel the impact but absolutely and i'll be here to remind you that you did so. But I... Yeah, no, dude. Like, that feeling. I have so much internal dialogue whenever I'm walking to the shower. I look at myself in the mirror. I'm like, you devilish man.

You're figuring it out one step at a time. You're doing fine. You fine young gentleman. I actually have this habit of when i'm in the shower i listen to like kind of inspirational rap music it's like it's not like genre is inspirational rap music but it's like a playlist of songs that i've selected from artists that i like that are particularly inspiring to me and presumably because you chose them you're so into the lyricism that you're just like bumping along oh my god yeah i'm just i just i have my um i have my waterproof bluetooth speaker that's like hanging from one

of my shower curtain clips in my shower and i'm just like jamming out to the music and it's just a good time um and then i leave that feeling like heck yeah i feel like a million bucks you know speaking of feeling how the hell was your week my my dude? My friend Jarvis, my best friend Jarvis. Oh, it has been, it has been a rough time. Oh boy. Um, just, it's just been a busy time, you know? And, and I think I'm in one of the situations where I have these priorities in my life and, you know, work is a big part of that. And sometimes things come up that take precedence over other things that you'd rather be doing. I've had a lot of

travel recently, and that has complicated my schedule. So we got back, we went to LA, we went to Dallas, I got back to SF. I was in SF for like a couple days, then I went to Cleveland for a week. And then I got back from Cleveland on like a Monday morning, which is a work day. And then I went into work. For those of you that don't know. And then I just continued like going, right? And I didn't have the presence of mind or the time or the situation. Like these things are very personal.

And like there's like always all these variables with it. And it's just like the way things shook down is that I just like haven't had my weekend. You haven't had your rejuvenative space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we've talked about this a million times, but my good friend Jarvis, you live ham. You don't just go ham. You live within the orbital sphere of ham. Right.

You, my friend, are a pig. You, my friend, do go very much ham. You dive in, you pursue a lot of projects and a lot of proficiencies. And as a result you require that recharge time more than most and while i totally empathize with that it's very easy to lose track especially when you're on the road absolutely you don't have maybe the tools you need to do your recharge maybe you like a particular shower temperature that you just can't find a hotel or like for some reason you're like netflix vpn just

isn't working absolutely that kind of stuff can really set you up for failure yeah and it's been what you is this your the weekend we're currently in is the first you've been in no stuff no road no move correct yeah which is why you know video's been late like podcast schedule has been off it's just been like a tough time you know and i feel really lucky that I can like commit myself to my work in that way because I really do love to work and not just like on my job stuff. I love, I love to put in the work on the things I'm really passionate about. And I'm so lucky that, that my work is within the things that I'm, I'm really passionate about. But as such, like you were saying, when there are just so many things that are, are, you know, in the air, so many things to, to, to work on, it can be, it can be easy to lose sight of, of, you know,

taking care of, of oneself. So my room got messy and, you know, all of the normal, you know, like we've talked in a previous sad boys episode about cleaning house like this is definitely one of those like cleaning house moments and i also feel really fortunate that spending this time right here is rejuvenative to me like i i this is something that i look forward to this is a time that i enjoy and we were actually talking about that the other day and like so much has changed about sad boys in my personal and emotional ecosystem, but also as an external product. Like the way that people interact with Sad Boys has changed a lot lately. We get a lot more engagement than we used to.

Right. A lot more listeners and a lot more messages. And that excites me so much. But the thing that Sad Boys was always intended to be was our private therapy session that we serve with the world. Yeah. Our public private therapy session. Our public private therapy session. And lately, Sad Boys has been an anchor for me

yeah i think we could both say the same in fact when we were on the road uh on the road touring we were just traveling at all and i think by traveling it's it's uh you're you're traveling by the nature of your job and i'm following you. I had to take my son with me. Yeah. But like while we were out, specifically when we were in LA, we took the recording equipment with us because it's fairly lightweight and we recorded an episode with Lauren, one of my all-time favorites.

I love spending time with Lauren and getting episodes done with her. Lauren's the best. If you're not just consuming everything that Lauren does, what are you doing? What are you doing? Next time you're sitting down

and you're re-watching an episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, theoretically. All right. Jerry. Jerry. Jerry. Now, stop what you're doing. I know you're browsing the internet right now.

I want you to go over to twitter.com slash laurenchippin. Hit that follow button and just enjoy the rest of your life because your life's better now. Yeah. Yeah. He just opened it and it's going really slow. Close some tabs, Jerry. You have like 11 tabs and you're not using any of them you're not you've had the tab on the left open for the past two weeks yeah look bud if you haven't read that medium article by now you're not going to yeah uh get over to uh lauren shippen s-h-i-p-p-e-n

everything he makes is amazing particularly the right sessions which is taking some strides right now goodness gracious get in there catch up before everything pops off there's not much time uh yeah but we uh this this has been an anchor for me uh and it was when we were traveling as well when we were with lauren and we got to sit down and pop out those microphones it was like i was back in my apartment yeah just like oh christ yeah this is who i am which is why we recorded for two hours by accident. Yeah. Lauren was like late to her thing. She was so kind to us. We were like an hour over our normal record time.

None of us realized, right? Bye. Shout out to Lauren. And that's like, I said a thing during that episode, which I would like to repeat on this episode of the show, which is like, I don't believe in this like time of our lives concept. I don't believe that one day I'm going to look back and go, oh yeah, those were the times. No, this right here is and continues to be the time of our lives.

And I want to appreciate that moment as it's happening. You're literally always experiencing the time of your life. Yeah. Because you're experiencing it. And that's how time works. And you're alive. Congrats. Yeah.

I mean, we'll dive into this imminently, but adulthood and life in general, being present is a little bit of a cliche, right? Like people talk about the idea of feeling what you're feeling as you feel it to make sure that you are at no moment losing track of the person you are and you're appreciating everything that you have. Right. But if you are one of those people that's ultra present and has got all their shit together make sure that you're spending a little bit of anchor time yeah make sure that you're javasing and finding i don't know do you meditate

i don't um but it's not for any reason other than i've got like a laundry list of things i want to improve about myself and work on and it's uh just not happening at this moment it's like right below learn how to do a kickflip yeah well it's it's like uh honestly if i can get to like working out regularly right now then like meditating is like next you know what i mean yeah i feel you yeah yeah uh because i just like i'm fully aware of the mental health benefits of like working out it's just like my schedule is so buck wild and i haven't even had the time i haven't even had like the time to take a step back to like evaluate my schedule and like start to make changes and stuff um it's you're doing let me say this as an external uh evaluator right you're doing just fine with the stuff in the gravitational yeah to pull like you're basically

inviting a meteor and if you can't correctly move it into your orbit, it's going to destroy the Earth. Right, right. So it's fine. You've got satellites and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel good.

I always have stuff that I'm working on and I do get to that stuff. It's like, sometimes it takes years to get to it, but it is like a very fixed... It doesn't live physically anywhere. It lives in my head, but I, I, there is a place that I want to be and I'm working to get there and all, there's a lot of failure along the way. And I, I, I try to embrace that and I try to just like continue to keep my eye on, on the prize there. Yeah. But you know, it's it's like as as as busy and as exhausting and as frustrating as this week has been i can't help but be like just really happy that i get to live

the life that i live you know you aren't bored yeah i think it's fair to say yeah which maybe hey fate worse than death perhaps perhaps. Oh, my God. Good God. I'm so embarrassed you're on the toilet. My bad. Sorry. I'm in the bathroom. Hey, what's up?

It's your boy. Also from the future. Just like the last guy. What? You're not. You look just like him. No, that was my granddad who was, I believe, your great grandson. Though the chronology is hard to track

i've come back this time to tell you that wait before you know before you even say it last time the guy is he like did he die hmm is he gone oh are we any of us ever really gone okay well last time he he came here just to tell me to open up DMs, and I had already opened up DMs like a month prior to that. That was a miscalculation, I'll be honest. That was our bad. So the Institute, the people that sent me back in time to come warn you of the thing I'm about to warn you of, they sent him back, and they were like, Hey, we miscalculated.

We originally thought you had an open Twitter DM, so we sent somebody back to get you to open Twitter DMs. Turns out you have. So you're here to tell me something. I just really hope. Don't worry. Not Twitter DMs this time. Okay, okay.

Can you imagine? Yeah, no, yeah. That would be so embarrassing. Right. So what's up? Yeah, so this time, thankfully, we had this little thought. Sorry.

I just finished up. Oh, God. Can I leave? Let's just walk out here. Oh, yeah, okay. Sorry. I just finished up. Oh, God. Can I leave? Let's just walk out of here. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Here's my idea.

Let's kick off. Do you know Squarespace? Yeah. You can use a coupon code to get in there. Squarespace is this website, right? Okay. And you can use it to make a website. I think I know where you're going here.

We should make, stay with me, a sad boys website. And then that way we can have a contact form and information about the show and stuff. I have bad news. You made the Twitter? No, I know you made the Twitter DMs, but this is new information to you. No, but like, please tell me that like in the past, I don't know, few years, the technology for traveling back in time isn't as taxing. Oh, how it used to murder millions of people to do and also I would dissolve at the end? Yeah.

Oh, don't worry. This time it only murders, I don't know, 450,000 closely. Oh, God, no. And I do dissolve, but it's slower so I can communicate during it and it's much more painful. Well, I don't know if i should tell you this now or later but we've already made a website we already have sadboyspod.com um this is rough i i'll be honest with you i i'm really sorry oh oh god and all the scientists said it would happen too this is so bad is there any way for you to communicate back so that

future generations like don't have this problem i mean yeah at best we can maybe reduce it to 200 000 dead but that people are going to keep coming back and people are going to keep dying there's really very little we can do um okay well the result you see my feet the dissolving starting no i well it was ow it's nice to know that my bloodline carries on this long sure yeah i mean i guess not much longer no follow-up questions but it some stuff happens let me tell you that much but uh okay ow oh your feet are getting hot there go my knees all right it doesn't take a while i see so do you want to i know this is like an ad break do you want to get back to the show because otherwise oh okay should we check back in with you like before the end of the show then

yeah that sounds great i'm sinking very gradually into your bathroom floor so oh no what anyway back to the show all right so today we are talking about adulthood wow rainbow yeah it's weird we both yeah strange that's amazing what a great topic idea javis where the hell did it come from where did it come from well it came from one of our wonderful listeners by the name of vanessa chin she hit us up on twitter and said maybe one about adulthood like how when we're little we want to grow up already then all of a sudden we become adults and it's like just kidding can we go back? Please?

I'll pay any amount of money. Please send me back. So first I just want to thank Vanessa Chen at NessaChen21. That's a dope Twitter handle. Do you think she's 21 years old or she was born in 1921? I think she might be 21 at this moment, but there's no way that, like, how long has her Twitter account been around? It surely isn't possible. There's no way. There's no way that like how long is her twitter account surely is impossible there's no way there's no way that means he jumped onto twitter when she was like 11 okay okay no

she joined she joined in march 2014 nice try vanessa okay well thanks um thanks vanessa for uh for submitting this episode idea and if you have any episode ideas that we should do please hit us up at the normal places at sadboyspot on twitter sadboyspod.com and sadboyspot at gmail.com normally we spend a really long time talking about how to reach us so i just wanted to like knock that one out and let us not forget if you do look into a marriage and say just in three times one of us will appear i hope you're not disappointed. But it is not clear which. To this day, we're not sure.

So, Jordan, let's first start with Vanessa's sentiment. Like, when you were a kid, did you feel this desire to grow up already? Did you feel frustration with your, like, power position as a child? Absolutely. Yeah. with your like power position as a uh as a child absolutely yeah i was obsessed with the idea of being an adult and consistent sad boys listener and fan joy cope my mother will attest to that like i the idea of having full agency is something i feel like not only did i chase as a child but it's something i chase today like right that sensation of i am the master of my own destiny

everything that i do contributes to whether or not I am happy. Yeah. And as a child, I always felt like, well, I kind of want to find out if I eat 25 bars of chocolate, do I get sick? Well, my mom's never going to let me do that because that's insane. Yeah. But I want to test my barriers. I want to establish my expectations, which is a crazy thing to do as a child yeah but as i've gotten older i've found more and more of that my curiosity is often like sated by really

messing shit up by really trying something like i'm just gonna work over the weekend for three months i'm gonna see what happens if i work every single weekend for three months and see how far it progresses my career right and how comfortable i feel huh turns out not great huh and then i do another month i'm like well i'm just gonna work out every single day and like that kind of experimentation and that exploration of the self yeah it's something you just don't get as a kid you don't have like the means yeah yeah so that was my obsession when i was growing up i was like i i want to know what i am you felt frustrated that you couldn't learn more about yourself and experiment more because your life was like on so many rails i am at my heart jarvis and i know you're gonna be shocked at your heart

you're jarvis i'm at my heart jarvis uh i know you're gonna be shocked by this but i'm something of a control freak jarvisvis Not necessarily with other people But with myself I like to know that I'm responsible for All my decisions and all the impacts of those decisions I When I was a kid you just don't get that Mulaney has that great bit about how

It's just an aside But I forget what the bit is He's referencing the fact that he's a child And he just goes I don't have any cash. Yeah. And that resonates with me so much because like, oh, I know because you can't make the choices.

Is that the bit when he's hungry and his dad is like... Oh, the McDonald's. Like walking him around and he's... Oh, wait, I'm thinking of Pete Holmes. I'm thinking of a Pete Holmes bit about being a kid.

John Mulaney, Pete Holmes, great comedians. Let's just say that clearly being a kid is enough of a struggle to be referenced in multiple comedy specials who knew that has to be mean something yeah how about you young jarvis did you ever feel that that craving for agency that craving for adulthood yeah who's that excuse you yeah wow i am sexy jordan. Oh, no, please. Hello there. What do you think of my salsa dance? Adika Banderas.

I don't drop it for the entire episode. So for me, I definitely, I think I oscillated between having lots of agency because parents would be at work or something like that and I could kind of do whatever I wanted while I was home and feeling like I had no control whatsoever. So I certainly wanted for independence. And I just remember I used to lie only because it would grant me more independence. Interesting. Like I would tell lies because I was confident in my decisions, but I knew that they wouldn't fly if I told the truth. Give me an example of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So an example is that yeah yeah so an example an example is that i used to play a lot of runescape as we've mentioned earlier you've never brought this up yeah so uh uh yeah i used to play a lot of video games and do a lot of things that weren't like uh directly related to my studies in the computer room of my aunt's apartment so i would like visit my aunt i would like sequester myself into her like little study and it was a closed room so people would have to like open the door to talk to me and by that time i could like what a time to be alive that many of our listeners probably weren't alive for yeah hey you know the room that's just a computer

you go in there to do computer yeah and you leave and you can't be notified i forgot that that yeah wow so i remember um i was always like the person who was the computer savvy one sure uh and so because i was the kid i was like the young one who was just like poking around with things and uh it'll work you got literacy at a very young age yeah we'll just bring him in to troubleshoot. Exactly, exactly. So I set up this computer for my aunt. And so I think everybody just like was like,

nah, he's a kid. He just likes to be on the computer all the time. And because I was on the computer all the time, I was just like on the internet. I was playing RuneScape. I was like in Photoshop. I was like on forums. I was just doing everything an internet browser would do.

Except that was me identifying as an internet browser. I was also on forums. I was just doing everything an internet browser would do, except that was me identifying as an internet browser. I was also painted Chrome. I was a Google Chrome with myself. I was an internet explorer. I would explore the internet. But the thing was my junior year of high school was when I was supposed to be like looking at colleges, trying to decide where to go to college.

And my aunt like had this very different view of how much research I needed to do for college uh compared to me I felt like I did like a little bit of research I did I did enough research I figured out where I was applying I was applying to like these five schools like the graft comes in when you join the college not pre yeah i mean like there's this i i just like i'm a big believer in like diminishing returns and like how much investment you can make in like these this research and so uh my aunt was expecting me for like a whole summer to be researching colleges or something i was like doing some stuff during the day but like in a lot of my free time on the computer she was like you researching colleges and i was like doing some stuff during the day, but like in a lot of my free time on the computer, she was like, you researching colleges?

And I was like, look, I think I'm going to be fine. I'm just going to play RuneScape. If I walked in on my son on his laptop and he was researching colleges, I would put him in a locker. Yeah. I'd be like, dork, nerd, play some games. Every time my aunt would walk into the computer room, I would like tab over to like board nice dot edu and i'd be like seamless oh wow wow carnegie millen university looks interesting i'm i'm thinking about applying but i don't quite know yet so it's gonna take another few weeks i'm gonna need to sit and stare at their their landing page for a series of

additional days look at this uh there's this at this photograph of a diverse group of friends. They really seem to be having fun, but are they having as much fun as these other kids on a different landing page? Yeah, University of California in Los Angeles. Interesting. These kids look happy. Who knows?

That's a nice button up. That might change my mind. It's going to take me a solid three weeks to compare. And if it's not that there's like a lot of clicking and me shouting, I swear to God, a solid three weeks to compare. And if it's not that there's like a lot of clicking and me shouting, I swear to God, that's just the university page. So yeah, that was like an instance of me feeling like confident in my own decisions. And the only way for me to claim back agency was by lying.

So it'd be like, oh, did you research colleges? And I was like, yeah, yeah, totally. Another example is like studying for tests and stuff. I would study to the degree that I thought was appropriate. And my like parents would think that there was like a different amount that I needed to study. But based on no information, like it would just be like, you're not studying enough for this thing. It's like, what do you know? I know the material. But do you think that regardless of how much you did, the fact that your parents had not

been to university was, like, indicative of how much pressure they were going to put on? Like, no matter what Jarvis does, we're going to add 10%. Yeah, so. Because we care so much about him and his future. This is what parents do. Yeah. I don't know if I've talked about this much on the show, but, like, raised me for a significant portion of my like upbringing, at least from like adolescence to college. And I, in my immediate family, was the first to go to college.

So there was a lack of a point of reference there. And I know that this was like coming from a like a loving point. But this was for me as like a 16 year old the 17 year old who was like being rebellious it was a way to claim back some of my agency sure um especially since it implicitly suggests that actually no i've got my shit together i'm a cool teen and i can handle it by myself i don't need to research yeah yeah and it's like it's it's i've been wrong in some instances i've been right in others but like i trusted myself at that point because i knew that i wanted to be successful and i knew that like i couldn't piddle away like my uh opportunities so so i was getting good grades

you know it's like i was doing the right stuff but it uh the requirements that were put on me by my aunt felt very superficial so i I like disregarded them. Definitely identify with wanting to be an adult. Damn, Vanessa, you just gave us like a clean 20 minutes of content. You're out of control. With one sentence. Yeah. So I have a big question for you, Jarvis, my friend. Okay.

How would you, in a succinct wee sentence, describe being an adult? Like, okay, so as I stand today as an adult. Correct, yes. How would I describe being an adult. Like, okay, so as I stand today, as an adult. Correct, yes. How would I describe being an adult? What distinguishes being an adult from being a child to you as somebody that I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, is doing adult right now? Yes, that's true. I think, yeah, being an adult versus being a child, largely, to me, is just the lack of oversight.

Interesting. Like, just having oversight is the distinction. I think it's responsibility. So it's like, where does the buck stop? Like, your actions as a child, the buck stops at your parents. And then, like, as you get older, you become more and more responsible for your own actions and similarly responsible for your own well-being. And so I guess that's like how I define adulthood.

Interesting. Are there any like particular traits or skills or schemas that you associate with adulthood that every adult develops? It's what defines them as an adult because the alternative which i personally align with kind of is an adult is just a child that turned 18 well so i also believe that uh i don't want to get it twisted uh i just think that like becoming 18 also has this other like thing where like legally you are independent um sure but i don't think it's any different. I think if you take a, if you take an 18 year old and like, just, they do all the same things and they live in their parents' house,

it's like they're legally an adult, but like the actions and the responsibilities are like, not like in line with that. So I think I, I have two definitions. I think I have the, the legal definition of adulthood and then like my own personal definition, which is about, it's about independence.

And with those in mind, what would you say is like the number one thing that you expected from adulthood that you didn't get and the thing you didn't expect that you did? Feels like a double partner, might be. The thing that I did expect but didn't get is the answers oh shit yeah yeah oh my god i think that every single listener of sad boys just fell to the ground oh god yes i think a big part of uh of adulthood is like starting to see the matrix of of all of the adults are just big kids operating without the answers operating to the best of their ability and and then suddenly realizing like wait but there's nobody to guide us surely there's one

adult one super adult to guide us through this difficult time yeah yeah yeah it's like yeah if you think about it everybody uh is kind of let out of the nest at like the same time so everyone has the same like ramp up to to adulthood on average doesn't continue to get like additional context and learning so um there's this weird analogy i always use let me know if this aligns with you at all because it's really weird but i always imagined um adulthood as like a nascar track people are just just riding around in a cycle forever until they die and your entire childhood you're in the audience and people are like all right soon enough you'll be one of those drivers and you're like okay cool so i need to learn how to drive and i gotta get

myself a helmet and i gotta make sure i don't crash or anything like all of the necessary education and then you're sent out there and they went okay and here's your car and it's just like a skateboard yeah it's like you didn't you didn't get me a fuck what do i do and you're like you just have to go i'm sorry and you're like skating with your foot down the nascar track dodging other cars crashing and you see like a hundred million other skateboarders as lost as you are you're like oh my god what nobody told me that this was a nightmare yeah i think um the hundred skaters as lost as you are is like what college is like yeah um and they were pointing to one another like did you get a car yeah yeah um i think there there's a lot of differences with regard to what role your your your parents and stuff and your you know general mentors and things play in your life beyond 18 um like for me I was actually just independent from like 18 on and kind of just had to figure out everything for myself.

And that was something I was comfortable with and prepared for, but it comes with its challenges, you know, like not feeling like you have a safety net. Sure. You get to dive straight into agency, but if you aren't agent enough, game over. Yeah, exactly. And so I want to add an additional component to your question. straight into agency but if you aren't agent enough game over yeah exactly and so i'm going to add an additional component to your question uh so your next question is what is something that i didn't expect but did get yes from adulthood and then i'm going to add something to that which is just like my bottom line about adulthood because i think it isn't reflected in my answers. But the thing that I didn't expect, but did get is an appreciation for childhood. Interesting. I think that when I had the perspective of not being cared for, like as an adult, I began to realize like how simple life was like like back back then because there are just so many

open-ended questions and it can be easy to feel the weight of adulthood because there's no objectivity to two things sure and uh you're put on that nascar track and they're just like i don't even know which way to drive exactly and when you're when you're a kid like there's just so much simplicity to it because you're insulated from those questions by your caretakers often your parents right um and so so that so that's that but i think that like leaves a negative tone and and i my bottom line the reason that i added this third piece is that adulthood for me has been amazing like there have been challenges, sure. And there have been times when I wonder, I wish I could just go back to this time. And I will always be able to look back at my time as a

kid with fond memories. But at the same time, there's just so much available to you as an adult. You have so much control. And there's just so much opportunity to you as an adult you have so much control and there's just so much opportunity to carve out your your best life and grow in the way that you want to grow and i don't know it's just like i think it's worth i think it's worth the pain for me like i would never choose to go back to being a kid oh most definitely i mean there's something i don't even know what the word would be but there's something comforting almost about the fact that when you fail, you fail. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In the times, we were talking earlier about like how when I've fucked up and when I've succeeded, I've known that that's what I'm capable of. Right. We have a bodega. Some people who live in the tech scene will know what this is, but it's a little vending machine effectively, but they put things like Apple headphones in them and toilet roll and also like snacks and sweets.

You call those bodegas? They're called bodegas. Like the brand. Oh, it's like a start. It's like a startup. It's a startup. Yeah.

Taken obviously from the name of a traditional bodega. Yeah. And they have them in a lot of like, they have them in a lot of uh startup buildings uh or a lot of um apartment buildings in the startup environment and we just got one recently and while i was there for some reason because i'd never had them i bought myself a package of sour patch kids right i was like fuck it i'm a 24 year old kid i can get a little crazy my metabolism can handle it.

Right. That was three weeks ago. I still feel like garbage. The Sour Patch Kid is a chemical weapon designed by the enemies of America to destroy people one individual at a time. Yeah. The Sour Patch Kid makes me resent the sun. Like when it comes up on like another day, another day that I could eat Sour Patch Kids. Sour Patch Kids is the worst thing in the world first time i've ever had it god damn yeah and

because i got that experience because i got to learn okay jordan cope just doesn't eat sour patch kids that's easy i would never have learned that as a child like right the child my mom would have gone just don't eat that it looks like a baby and it's made and you're like what now i want it more oh please give me the experience like but now what i love about being an adult is you get to set your own boundaries and fail and learn from those failures. Absolutely. So first to the point of like when you fail, you fail. That sounds like really crappy. But then you realize that by this point in your life, you have so much perspective that hopefully each individual failure isn't like

world altering um but you know that that that also comes comes with time and uh i totally agree about the sour patch kids thing like i routinely will like order pizza or like eat candy. Like you've never done it before. Yeah, like no one can stop me. I am just a big child. And now my like, now I have disposable income and the means to, there is something very strange about the ability to just get

all of the things that you want for yourself. It shouldn't be legal for an individual to have both some money and the uber eats app they should be like mutually exclusive yeah no it's just like i uh like when i moved into my apartment a few years ago it's like four years ago at this point i i was like should we get like a game console and i was like i'll just buy a PS4. I can do that? I just will. The agency you have as an adult is a double-edged sword. I can buy all the Sour Patch Kids I want

or all the Legos I want or all the PlayStation 4s I want, but maybe I put all that on a credit card and now, whoopsie-daisy, my credit score is tanked and I don't have the money to pay this bill and a super soaker just arrived that i'm really jazzed about but this was probably not a good move yeah or or it was just a bad financial decision like you there's just a lot of um there's a lot of variables and you're you're for the first time having to balance your desires with yourself.

Like, there's no judge to validate your wants and needs. You have to do that for yourself. There's no clear right to. Exactly. There's, like, no ethical truth as an adult. Not that there should be necessarily as a child. Like, you should encourage your children. I'm fucking saying, I don't have any kids.

You raise your children how you want. Don't this 24 year old piece of shit but theoretically you shouldn't necessarily place clean ethical boundaries and let them explore figure out how things operate let them eat a little too much ice cream let them get sick that kind of thing right but when you're a kid the worst case scenario is that you stay home from school for a day. What's going to go wrong? Oh, I ate too much sweets. And oh, I can't go to work. It's just if you think about what you have to consider when you're an adult, a kid is just like an easy mode version of that. It's like, all right, what's hard mode like?

Well, you have to think about your actions the consequences of your actions you have to support yourself and you have to think about the long term i like the hard mode phrasing because that is what adulthood is you know what i mean yeah it is switching up to extreme yeah like well but i learned how to well then it's a yeah and so it's like to that end it's like what's what's easy mode it's like well um most of that you don't have to care about all you have to do is uh is just listen to the the things that you're told and do those things yeah um i constantly think of uh joy cope major fan of the show have already referenced her this episode my favorite human on the planet my my sweet sweet mother what a what a treat she's a I constantly think of Joy Cope, major fan of the show, have already referenced her this episode. My favorite human on the planet.

My sweet, sweet mother. What a treat. She's a sweet treat. She will be moving to the country quite soon and she will be on the podcast. Why can I wait? Get hyped for that. I can't wait. I've made her sign a contract that doesn't say too many things embarrassing about me. But like she did a fantastic job of prepping me for college.

She like conditioned me to understand how to do laundry and cook basic things you know just so i could survive and the like you know how it is to be alive just like the point that you you get to 18 and it's like uh mom can you teach me how to survive hey i'd like to not die do you know how uh but the thing that struck me as like the most adult and least accessible was exploring does that make sense like i know how to use the laundry machine that's in my building and i know how much it costs and i know what heats to set it to and then the rest of the world goes but what if you theoretically move to san francisco and then you move here like i oh yeah did you do you know how pounds work and then the world doesn't know and then you're like right what's the sal patch kid they're like i don't know and yeah it just that's that's the

thing that you like have the opportunity to grow at as you become an adult but there is like all right there's no safety net here. You have to get the answers from somewhere else. Like, I guess some people can get it from their parents, but the entire concept of adulthood is based on gathering this independence, like slowly but surely fostering an independent life for yourself. Jordan, I want to ask of you, questions for me. What are things about adulthood that you didn't expect but did happen and vice versa? Oh, boy. So the number one thing that I expected from adulthood, basically my entire life. I mean, it talks a little bit about how the entire time I was hoping that adulthood would grant me the agency I did not have as a child.

The thing that I was expecting was that I didn't like being a kid. I was convinced my entire life, I don't want to be a kid. I want to be an adult. I want to be able to pick stuff up. I want to didn't like being a kid. I was convinced my entire life. I don't want to be a kid. I want to be an adult. I want to be able to pick stuff up. I want to be able to like drive a car. I want to be able to order things online. Just all the basic stuff.

I want to be able to purchase alcohol, not even drink it. I just want like the agency to make my own decisions. For some bizarre reason in the UK, you can have sex at 16. You can drink at 18 and you can order, you can sell scrap metal at at 17 it's like a strangely specific thing that a bunch of people think is a milestone in the uk wait does that like so in the

states when people turn 18 um you don't get much when you're 18 uh but a lot of people will like go buy cigarettes at like a corner store you can smoke at 18 uh yeah yeah and so and so people will be like haha i bought cigarettes and they'll like be like but i don't smoke so i'm just gonna throw these away or whatever but it's like i'm exercising my legal right at your father or it's like or it's like they're gonna go vote or whatever we're kids like just for kicks selling the number of times i'd wake up in the morning, still today, and see a bunch of British kids on my car trying to tear away the titanium. They're just like, we're 17. I do what I want.

But yeah, that was a common thing in the UK was like, okay, here are the different ages of validation. But I'm convinced that at 18, maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe I'll miss the idea of being a kid. Maybe I'll miss the support. Hey, the kid loves his mother to pieces. She's his favorite human being on the entire planet but i love being able to just make mistakes right and it helps me and my mom are very close like when i make mistakes i message her and she's like oh yeah they really

fuck that up and i'm like yeah i know it was me the whole time but like what i expected subconsciously when i was growing up was that i would reach adulthood that i'd wanted my entire life and it sucks it's boring and it's too hard and i wish i could just yeah i can buy lego but i really wish somebody would cook for me you know that yeah yeah that was not the case i felt very very comfortable with adulthood i guess that was the thing that i did expect that took place um to incorrectly answer my own question. You asked it in like a, it's still to me like a puzzle. It's true. I drew it up on a whiteboard. It's a Sudoku. But the thing that I didn't expect that I did get actually kind of reflects yours. And it was that sensation of other people being in the same position. I was convinced that I was like this weird kid that was a kid at heart,

but was going to do their best at being an adult. You know what I mean? Right. I'm a child that can also do laundry. Yeah. I'm a baby that is able to drive a car. Like that was the way I perceived myself. And then suddenly, especially since I moved to SF, god, it'll be

Three years in October I have met so many people That are like Hey, have you noticed That everyone's a baby Have you noticed that every single person Shouldn't be allowed to do All the things they do

Why are we allowed to do it And that was um for whatever reason like it was post-college time of tears so it makes sense i'm sure it was the same for you domestically but that sensation of seriously does nobody know what we should be doing yeah yeah real not even you and you like point to somebody that's a millionaire like i just i honestly this is pure luck i have no idea what's going on yeah shit do you have any tips yeah like that was the thing that surprised me that sensation of okay so nobody has any idea what's going on any of the time that is like the most freeing part of all this i think into vanessa's like original sentiment

i really i i think that we have a perspective that hasn't led us to this feeling but i do want to address it because I think I empathize with it and I can kind of understand where it's coming from, which is like the just kidding, can we go back? Yeah. I think where that comes from is the sheer amount of, like, there's just pressure. There's just a lot of like stuff to be responsible for there's a lot of things to take care of that shit is overwhelming and uh i think for for for me that's like manifested itself in like an appreciation of of the past but i've luckily found like a good support group of people who are like going through a similar thing to me and like have helped me um i guess stay on top of of what to take care of do you feel because i

feel this all the time and i'm sure many listeners do as well but do you feel that sensation of man nobody else is feeling this right now everybody else is pretty much cracking it and it's just me i'm lagging behind and i'm not being enough of an adult yeah so yeah we both share that right yeah how do you medicate that like what are do you have any practices to rid that imposter syndrome that adult imposter syndrome of of like oh wait i'm an adult i don't even know what i'm doing everybody else gets it but not me yeah i think oh my goodness gracious uh reassuring myself that i'm not alone um in that in that feeling like uh if i if i like text a friend and i go you know what i just feel like i don't know what i'm doing and then i get a response that's like me neither bucko that's that's basically every text exchange we have on a Sunday. Yeah. You'll message me and go like, hey, what is happening?

Like, I, my friend, I do not understand. Yeah, today it was, hey, have you fed yourself? No, have you? No, I think I need to eat. I don't want to eat yet. Great. We are full adults. You literally messaged me, what, an hour before the recording was going to happen?

Yeah. We started at 6 p.m. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you roll up and you send me a text. You go like, have you eaten? And I'm like, I didn't because I was walking. I was walking around and much like a baby at a mall, I just kept walking around. Yeah, how could I?

And I forgot to do the thing that keeps me alive how can i possibly yeah so um i honestly like i will watch like youtube videos of people who i respect who are talking about topics like this like there's just so much that i need to be i need to ground myself and like i am not having a unique experience i think this is this is uh normal with my feelings of like inadequacy that happen outside of like adulthood it's like okay this feeling isn't unique i can go look at people who have been adults have lived like full lives and who share the same sentiment that i feel um and that is comforting i and i hope that this episode can be comforting to you vanessa and to all of to all of you golly i hope so because because we're everyone's in this together

and we're all just big kids you know you me and vanessa three big kids just hanging out dealing with this big wide world so big fat world full of kids. It's a kid world, but not in the way that you'd think. Welcome to kid world. Thank you so much, Vanessa, for writing in. I'm giving us a bloody fantastic topic. I have like, I just want to do like five more episodes on this topic. 100,000 episodes. I mean, in a way, all of our episodes are thematically tied back to adulthood.

Yeah. Because it's just like, hey, how's your social anxiety? Well, it's difficult because I'm an adult and things are hard. Yeah, it's like I went from having to think about one thing, which was breathing, to thinking about everything. I don't want to underestimate this. I was carried. People would pick me up and take me to another location that I needed to be at. And when they weren't picking me up, they were rolling me.

And when they weren't rolling me, they were tucking me into bed. I was either asleep or being pampered. I was either being massaged or not awake. Yeah. First, they stopped feeding me directly. Then I had to feed myself. Then I had to start walking. If you can believe it.

My knees are still sore. From day one. From day one. Seven years young, I've been walking. Then I blink and they kick me out of the damn house. I'm still reeling from the whole breastfeeding fiasco. I'm still reeling. I'm 28 years fiasco. I'm still reeling. I'm 28 years young.

They gave me my own bottle to take home. So, I mean, like, I would love to continue talking about adulthood. If you have any questions about adulthood, any episode ideas, feel free to hit us up. Goodness gracious, I might. Hit up Sad Boys Pod. That's with a Z. Please don't forget the Z. My assumption is that there are

hundreds of thousands of messages sent to us sad boys with an s yeah it's true they're like a they're like a soundcloud rapper collective hey i make jokes but shit man we've talked uh outside of the podcast about how much things have been picking up like on a normal podcast you wouldn't talk about this but sad boys is all about ultra transparency the show's getting traction people are listening to the show some and people are messaging us about the show that is exciting and i really don't want to like understate how much that means to us it means a lot i feel like there's a a certain type of dialect that exists between podcast host and listener of podcast that is, oh yeah, send us in some messages and maybe we'll see them, maybe we won't, maybe we'll read them.

Everybody that's ever sent us a message on Sad Boys, we have read. We have responded to it if it happened to be available at that time. We're not always free to reply. Right, right, right. But we intend to, if possible, and we read every single one. We're at a very privileged place in our podcast life cycle right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it really genuinely means a lot to me when people send me messages.

No joke, people have very kindly written in and said very sincere things about how they were in difficult places in their lives. Or just shared the position that they're in. We really appreciate all of that. I mean, like when we were in Dallas, we were in the car reading dms and like talking yeah it was like 2 a.m in the morning yeah it was the topic of the day and i and i want to

express that because there have been a couple of times since the show really took off and found its audience that i have felt lost for whatever reasons external to sad boys and i've read some of those messages and not only does it excite me because people love the thing we make that itself is nice yeah but it also excites me because there's a thousand other jordans you know what i mean like yeah there's a thousand other weird people struggling with adulthood in exactly the same way that we do yeah messaging us about the same things that we've either struggled with in the past or probably will struggle with in the future yeah definitely man sad boys is creating uh we're not even creating it sad boys is presenting a space for a really cool community that's coming to us it's it's it's super humbling to hear uh

everyone's stories and stuff and i really encourage you to continue um especially with pen pals, which we'll get to right after the break. So, could I get you like tea or anything? Yeah, I'm fine. Oh, geez. Can you move that?

Cause I'm, I'm just ahead now. Yeah. Yeah. Oh God. Do you know how much longer, like, this is really painful for me to watch, but I feel...

There's so much dirt down here. Do you have a cleaner apartment? Okay, this is not the time for a character attack. Ow. I don't even... What's your name? My hair is getting stuck in your disgusting curtains. I honestly...

I know this isn't the time to critique your interior design. Your mouth is about to disappear. So, like, is this really how you want to... I'm just... All right. I'm still melting. What was your name? your mouth is about to disappear so like is this really how you want to i'm just all right i'm still melting what was your name justin okay yo what up jarvis i'm your great great great grandson i'm thinking of facebook page opinions on that young jarvis can I interest you, my good friend, in a pen pal? Absolutely. Fuck to the years.

This pen pal's message is from Tiasha. T-I-A-S-H-A. Does that feel good to you? Tiasha. Tiasha, yeah. Tiasha? Tiasha says, hi Jarvis and Steve. Don't love that.

Oh, amazing. I'm really not a huge fan of that. Already the biggest fan. Oh boy. Of Tiasha. The weird thing is, is that getting my name wrong means you really know the show yeah which i have very mixed feelings which frankly is bringing a tear to my eye i mean getting it right steve is my real name first of all i'd like to thank you guys for being hilarious and charismatic and real and for making a podcast that has turned into a genuine highlight of my day i I don't really have a question or point to this.

I was just in the middle of listening to your college episode and took your encouragement to write in and took your encouragement to write into heart. I also came to San Francisco this weekend for make a fair. I don't know what that is. Whoa. Yeah. No, wait,

I know what that is. What is that? Uh, so maker fair is like this big, uh, convention thing that's like a celebration of arts and engineering and like DIY. Basically, a lot of people making a bunch of cool stuff and then like showing it off. At least that's my understanding of it.

Okay. Well, I mean, we've defined it now. Yeah. So that is now what it is. That's what it is. Yeah. yeah so that is now what it is that's what it is yeah and she says this gorgeous city san francisco reminded me of jarvis's vlogs which reinforced the whole thing yay jarvis's vlogs where can they check out your vlogs jarvis well first of all uh the reason that

it reminds um tiasha tiasha the reason it reminds tiasha of my vlogs is because my vlogs are shot in san francisco that's true and she was able to crack that code yeah yeah which is kind of cool because i would not have assumed that my vlogs actually paint a picture of san francisco so uh that's really neat um you can find my vlogs at youtube.com slash jarvis johnson this is such a sweet message it goes on to say one of the things you guys talked about that i identified with was the flaw in our education system's method of teaching, specifically in teaching computer science. I just finished my sophomore year of college at UT Austin. I'm an MIS, Management Information Systems.

Does that sound familiar to you? I got it all. What a bunch of dorks. UT Austin, really good school, by the way. Hey, congratulations. MIS, cool major. Major in our School of Business, which I generally explain to people as being a fake CS major. Aw.

So congrats to you, Jarvis. You defeated our listener. No, I wouldn't sell it yourself so short. I mean, to me, as somebody that hasn't dabbled in either, I think MIS is much cooler. Much more professional, much more skilled. If anything, I'd say CS is the major for cowards. I would say so. It's coward science.

Yeah, for losers like Jarvis. Roasted. No, all majors are cool. Just study something and live your life. Yeah, it's not a big deal. Your major is not going to define your life. Yeah, find something that gives you something to work on for three years yeah three to four years i make youtube

videos and a podcast i have a degree in computer science my degree is film yeah i cannot express that enough yeah i'm the one making videos by the way jordan has a degree in film and i code constantly she can she continues while i truly do believe there are added benefits of learning the Jordan has a degree in film. And I code constantly. She continues, while I truly do believe there are added benefits of learning the business side of how computer systems work and affect people, I often find myself jealous of CS majors who get to focus completely on making things.

However, watching Jarvis' YouTube channel and listening to Sad Boys, that's the show we're doing right now. Whoa. Has shown me there are an unlimited number of paths to the careers we want and i'm extremely grateful to be part of a well renowned business school with the resources to help me succeed wherever i want this is an ad this has to be an ad this is surely an ad right oh my gosh it's an ad for ut austin it's an ad

for maker fair an ad for san francisco an out for Sad Boys and my YouTube channel. I have never been involved in the CS scene yet I've never wanted to go more to CS Austin than Tiasha has convinced me. Tiasha's a bastard. You Tiasha. You said CS Austin. No way. You did. You guys seem to embody the exact

kind of passion that I desperately want to pursue. Right now, it's hard to focus on things other than my GPA and recruiting although I also try to allocate time towards working on projects that interest me and keep me sane god damn tiasha feel you there babe i damn yeah oh my gosh it's so hard to focus on all those things that you're focusing on you're doing a lot it's okay to do the amount that you're already doing by the way as an adult yeah you're adulting just fine and to the point on an unlimited number of paths that's what adulthood is too you know like it doesn't matter like what major you like Kumail Nanjiani has a degree in computer science and Liam Neeson studied computer science Liam Neeson studied computer science you know that

okay sorry big news computer science just got cool yeah right anybody that wants to do it will be able to save their daughter if they are taken and tiasha is doing so much stuff like i'm just reading this message and she's like volunteering and helping kids trying to keep the gpa in a good spot like but she's only doing all of that right right how do i do that and find place for 19 additional projects tiasha take a deep breath um you're killing it right now tiasha um this is jordan from sad boys okay who let you in here you need to be kind to yourself yeah you've done everything slow down take a breath meditate if you can tell yourself that you're the best we believe you're the best yeah i totally understand where tiasha is coming from though

because like i am guilty of feeling these feelings too and it takes someone else to go hey hey you are doing enough jarvis like take a chill pill and so that's what role i want to take here to say tiasha i just read this message, you are going to be fine. You are killing it right now. Please just make sure this is sustainable for you and that you're taking care of yourself. Girl, you're popping off. You're the top 1%.

I love you. Frankly, I'm sorry. And Jarvis loves you too. Is that correct? That's correct. And I'm sorry. Frankly, I'm very sorry. Tiasha continues i'll be

interning at an it role this summer at an energy company in houston is that how you say it houston houston houston it's it's like it's the same word if it was like somebody's last name could be pronounced houston houston houston working on things like enterprise architecture i'm not sure as in she puts in parentheses i'm not 100 sure what that means uh but i can tell you i can tell you as a professional that term basically means nothing great uh but it probably means proprietary business software cool yeah uh she continues do you guys have any advice for taking full advantage of internships i really want to take this chance to prove myself and make an impact while also learning something in the process and hopefully propelling myself in the right direction in my career path so my advice to yasha is not to put

too much pressure on yourself you're going to learn a ton this summer um and just i i think just focus on um focus on learning i understand understand you have a couple of different paths that you want to go down, but keep an open mind and use this experience to inform future decisions. In the worst case scenario, you just learn the kind of stuff that you don't want to work on, and that's an extremely valuable thing to learn in and of itself. So it's going to be valuable no matter what hell to the yes i mean we've worked very different kind of internships i imagine yours have trended towards the coding environments whilst yeah yeah yeah bd sort of things but business development sort of things but in my experience like an internship feels very high risk, but it couldn't be more low risk. It is the safest environment to learn anything.

Now, you have to make mistakes. As a living human, you have to screw up constantly. Get them out now. Get them out as soon as possible. And this is the perfect environment to learn how to screw up in your work environment. It is like, I, the, like, I, you were able to take such risk in your internships because you're in and you're out and you get a lot of the learning. So you could go work at like an extremely small company

or you could go work at a company that's completely different from what you could ever imagine yourself working at. And you can invalidate those paths. You can validate other paths. Like the nature of internships is so um insulating of like a lot of the consequences of like starting jobs and stuff so yeah use this opportunity to learn as much as you can before there's like the um baggage of of like sort of

full-time employment yeah use this opportunity for exactly what it's designed to be, which is a trial run. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. And that's advice that applies far outside of internships, but specifically in this environment, particularly if it's one in a career that you plan on pursuing, it's okay to screw up.

Go nuts. Don't not make the most of it. I've squandered internship opportunities in the past where i just tried to operate at a medium level no go ham or go nowhere you need to do something you need to be impressionable you need to get weird make some take some chances screw things up this is the perfect opportunity for you to both yeah absolutely i think that like the expectations of interns are actually i think the expectations of interns are fairly low so you can use that to your advantage weird and wild gang okay i don't know about all that but but definitely just focus on on learning

steal some stuff feel free to be selfish uh and take care of you and your desires in terms of career development. And embezzle. That's the end of our advice about interning. Thanks so much, Tiasha, for writing in. If you want to write in to Pen Pals, go to any of the places to do that. So many goddamn good places, and all of them work. You just have to do it. Sadboyspod.com, on Twitter at Sad have to do it sadboyspod.com on twitter

at sadboyspod and sadboyspod at gmail.com if you're one of those people that's thought about it and hasn't done it know that me and Jarvis feel that we do and we respect that but we also are going to welcome you with open arms when you do write in and a single kiss on the forehead just one just one one quiet kiss and we won't tell you who is giving you the kiss in. And a single kiss on the forehead. Just one. Just one. One quiet kiss. And we won't tell you who is giving you the kiss. You get to interpret it. It's like a Justin situation. You're like, ooh, what kind of lips are those?

Young Jarvis, thanks so much for doing Sad Boys with me. We do have fun. We do have fun. We do. We end every episode of Sad Boys with a particular phrase. But is it musical? I think it has to be. I think it's now just

we haven't gotten any feedback i don't think anyone's made it to the end of an episode uh that we sing on or they've shut it off instantly including myself yeah you edit the show and you've turned it off i don't even know that i'm leaving it in the episode the finished all right we love you And we're sorry. Boo! Boo! We're going to.