The Chris Cuomo Project - Cuomo On The Couch: It Is What It Is

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

In a candid, unfiltered talk from his living room couch, Chris Cuomo explores the concept of “it is what it is,” and how to accept the lesson that there is no lesson. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This time, there is no fix. This time, it's the reality of when it simply is what it is. What do you do then? I'm Chris Cuomo, and it's something I've definitely struggled with before. In fact, I'm struggling with it right now. And welcome to this episode of Cuomo on the Couch. Aptly named, though not creative. It's good to have you for this special episode of The Chris Cuomo Project.

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slash ccp. Drinkag1.com slash ccp. Check it out. Now, this is a little different. This is about what I have learned in my own journey. And this is a sobering session. It's also a sober session, damn it. But it is more so sobering. Two motifs. One, I do a podcast for the mooch and I'm trying to help him understand and help other people understand that one of the lessons I've learned recently is

you got to cope. You can't always control, but you almost always have to cope and it's your choice how. And I was talking about anger and hurt and I was like, you know, I was so upset about what my family had been through that like, you know, I felt like I was going to kill myself, kill everybody. But of course you can't do that. You got to figure out how to cope and what to do. Now this is something you totally get, right? And so did all the people who decided to twist it for headlines and clickbait and to make me look homicidal or suicidal or whatever. Why? Because that's where we are. That's what a lot of the media can be about. Gotcha, reductive, negativity as a proxy for insight,

trying to tear me down. And it doesn't matter how many people tell me, well, that's because you have, and trying to spin it so I feel better about it. No. Second motif. I have to go and get stuff out of my truck. I don't want to go outside and get stuff out of my truck because it is freezing and freezing rain.

And I don't want to put socks back on, boots back on, coat on, go outside. Sitting on the couch, there's it. But I have to go out. I have to get something. This guy keeps calling me and what he needs is in the truck. I finally, I'm like, fine. And I open the door and I just walk outside. It wasn't a long walk or anything, but I'm just getting soaked immediately, freezing. No shoes on, no socks on, no coat on. And I get out to the truck and it just sucks the whole time. The whole thing just sucks. Get what I need, go back in the house, grab a towel, stand on it, wipe myself off, all the stuff. Okay, what do those two things have to do with each other?

Sometimes things suck. Now, there is a temptation, especially once you get into philosophy or psychology or rationality or self-help. It's always about fixing, right? It's always about, and right? It's always about, and here's what you do, and here's a way to think about it, and here's a great expression, and here's a process, and here are several steps. Well, I've read them. I've thought about them. I've tried to apply them. I've looked at the newest iterations, the latest and greatest. sometimes there is no fix. Sometimes it just sucks. Sometimes you will fail. Sometimes you will lie. You will hurt. You will be hurt. You will be lied to.

you will be lied to. These are realities. And what do you do with that? And in that hard time, there's an opportunity to make a bet, not always. And that's okay. Okay? And this is taking me a long time, and I'd be lying to you right now if I were to say, or even if I weren't lying, I'd be misrepresenting my own reality if I were to say, and even if I weren't lying, I'd be misrepresenting my own reality if I were to say, and now I get it. I don't. I am often tormented by the past right and wrong. Things I did wrong in the past, things I did right in the past that were treated wrongly. And there is no fixing. And you have to figure out, well, what are you going to do? If I can't fix it, I can't make it better. If I can't do that, and there are a lot of situations where that's true,

or this just hurts, this just sucked, this was just bad, it wasn't even something I did, at least there may be, there's an opportunity for some kind of fix based on the feelings coming from the other side or whatever the dynamic well now what someone dies i've experienced this as well there's all this temptation these poor people in your life who aren't directly affected as you by the death want to say the right thing. We've probably all been in that situation. And you just don't know what to say.

So we use like really tortured expressions like my condolences. Condolence is an interesting word. Latin breaks into feeling the pain with you. kind of an expression of empathy, sympathy, even though they don't, right? Wasn't their father, right? Or whatever. They may care about him, loved him, whatever. Wasn't their dad. There's nothing you can say. And there's nothing that really can be said, hey, look, if there's anything you need, right, that's all we can do is just offer. Okay. But on the side of the person with the direct experience, the person who lost the loved one, who was hurt, who did hurt somebody else,

Who did hurt somebody else. Just negative outcomes, okay? Failures, disasters, tragedies. Yes, everything that happens is an invitation of choice on your part. How do you feel about it? How do you process it? Do you not process it? But that doesn't mean, and I hope I've never given you the impression,

because I know this not to be true in my own life, that you're not going to make everything better. Shit, you're lucky if you can make anything better, okay? Even with the power of choice and perspective. And even if you do control, you'll be lucky to make marginal improvements. Improvement's hard. And that's when you've got everything going for you.

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enter the code Chris, and you can get up to 35% off your first order. CozyEarth.com, and the code is Chris. So here's what I know. Sometimes it is what it is you know that expression i use it all the time and i hate it i don't even know what it means sometimes i pull it apart hey listen this guy is what it is oh you know they said it was going to be 55 bucks winds up being 72 you know what is that is what it is and here's the best sense i can i even looked it up by the way i did a little research like it is what it is you know you can't even like track the history of the etymology of this thing it is what it is uh what does that mean some things can't be made into something else. They can't be changed.

They can't be fixed. It is what it is. And that's hard. But it is what it is. And you have to accept that. That this just sucked. Them twisting my words when they know I didn't mean

what they twisted it to say I meant. Oh, but you said it. Oh, and you don't know how I meant it? Get over here, I'll kill you. No, I'm not going there. That person just threatened to kill me. Context. Affect.

You know what the deal is, but you twist it. Why? To your own advantage. I get it. I get the game. And so what can I do? Nothing.

Why? Because in this culture, if you're explaining, you're losing. So you have to sometimes just accept that it is what it is. And that can be bad. That sucked. That was a loss. Sometimes in life, when you lose, you learn. If you're lucky, and I don't believe in luck, but you know what I mean. If you make the most of the opportunity, of the chance, of the outcome, sometimes you're not.

Or if you want to look at it a different way, sometimes the lesson is that there's no lesson. You're not going to get better from this one. You're not really going to learn anything from this one. get better from this one. You're not really going to learn anything from this one. I read something recently that helped me understand this. It just sucked to be outside in the rain. I was freezing. Well, then why didn't you put shoes on? Because I didn't want them to get wet. Why didn't you put socks on? Because I was lazy. I didn't want to. I didn't even want to go outside, but I had to. So I just did it. It sucked.

It's freezing cold and raining. It would have been better if you had a coat on. No, not really. It would have been freezing cold and raining. And then I would have had just a wet coat that I would have to deal with when I went inside. I wasn't going to be out for a long time. Got the truck wet. You know, it was just everything about it just sucked and I didn't want to do it. it's just everything about it just sucked and I didn't want to do it. Sometimes it is what it is. And the best thing to do, and remember, it's all relative, right? Because I'm not saying that this is something that just puts a smile on your face and just gets you to a better place. Next play. You ever play sports? This is why I love sports, by the way. It has very little to do with sport itself and everything for the metaphorical value of the life lesson.

Miss a free throw? One of the most classic things you'll see, especially after I pointed out if you're not a huge consumer of basketball. Guys miss a shot under the basket. The other guy, the other team gets the rebound. guys miss a shot under the basket the other guy the other team gets the rebound the chance that the guy who's standing right there who just missed that bunny that little layup grabs and fouls by trying to steal the ball from the other team is like exponentially increased why because you're pissed that you just missed the shot and you're desperate to make up for it. Sometimes it is what it is. And struggling in a bad moment just makes it worse or extends it or delays it.

Sometimes it's okay to forget. Sometimes it's okay to just move on. Sometimes you will have to take the L. For better or for worse, righteous or not righteous, sometimes you have to embrace the suck. It is what it is. This is different than an earlier iteration of my life's travails and ups and downs. So what? Now what? That's different. So what now what is a tool for perspective training that helps you deal with optionality and behavior and outcomes. And outcomes. Well, I made a proposition and it was rejected.

Okay. Get over it. It's not about your feelings. What does it really mean? And what are you going to do about it? Where you have options, that's a great tool. Okay. Oh, I just ate two sandwiches for lunch.

So now I might as well just forget the diet and eat pizza tonight. No. You screwed up your diet. So what? It's not the end of the world. Now what? It's just a step. It's incremental.

It's not a big deal. That's not always the case. My father's dead. This was terrible what happened. He, she, it, they, whatever, doesn't love me anymore. Sucks. It's horrible. Tree smashed my car. Dog died. Jobs gone. Friends went without me. Jobs gone. Friends went without me. Sometimes it is what it is.

And it doesn't have to be fair. Because the only thing to do is to let it go and go to the next. Not everything is a lesson. Sometimes you're not going to take a lesson, except that there is no lesson, and you got to keep going. There is no fix. There is no way to spin it where it's not what it seemed like what it was. It is what it is, and that's all it's going to be. It is what it is, and that's all it's going to be. And even if it's not okay, you have to let it go. I suck at this so uniquely, and yet I have seen other practitioners of it,

and I have been told this many, many times. And I know that it's true, and I know it is a great form of self-care. You will take a loss. It will be bad. It will be right. It will be wrong. It'll be fair. It'll be unfair.

Sometimes there is nothing to do but keep going. Sometimes it is literally almost an act of survival. You ain't going to thrive in this moment. Things ain't getting better. And they're not even necessarily getting worse. It's just, it is what it is. And you know, trite but true, that has been my experience. And I'll tell you something, it's more valuable as a realization than I fully realized for a long time because I would always agonize and antagonize and try to keep things going or make something of it or do something with it or fix it or this. It's not always the way to go. Sometimes it is what it is. Can you relate? Let me know. Comment, send me feedback on it because look, you know why I'm doing this, right? I'm doing this because I feel that it's a motivator for me to keep trying and grind.

And that I'm hoping that one of the purposes of the pain or the pursuit is that maybe it's helpful to you for me to explain my own travail so that even if I wasn't able to figure it out, I wasn't able to get to a better place on a particular point or issue, maybe you will by understanding what I now get after the fact, or I saw what didn't work for me. So that's what this is all about. Thank you for listening to me. I hope it's of value. I hope it's assistive. If it is, let me know. If it isn't, let me know. Subscribe, follow, be a critical thinker. Wear your independence. You can get the free agent gear if you're watching this on YouTube. If you're listening along, I appreciate all your feedback.

I'll see you on News Nation, 8 and 11 p.m. Eastern. If you want to figure out how to get News Nation, just check it out on my social media sites. Their direction's right there. I'll see you. Take care of yourself.