The Chris Cuomo Project - Walk and Talk: Constant Change

Episode Date: June 4, 2023

Chris Cuomo reflects on how the only constant in life is change, whether you like it or not, in a candid and honest Walk and Talk.  Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another walk and talk. This is a tough one, not the walk. Pretty easy, pretty nice out. Weather is shifting, it's getting warmer, more signs of life. The fish are here, that's good news. And it all happens because it has to happen the only constant is change and we accept that in the seasons but we don't often accept it in ourselves I know I don't you want certain things not to change you want certain things not to happen but you have very little control over what's going on around you other than your own reasoned choices, meaning what you decide to do or not do, say or not say. And that's plenty. But there is an urge for us to want to keep things the way they are, even when we don't like how they are.

But things are going to change anyway. And the question becomes, do you decide to participate in it, control what you can, accept what you can't? You know the serenity prayer. And a lot of this stuff, and I understand when you guys reach out and you talk to me about what we're doing together here as self-help. I don't believe that. I don't have a problem with this self-help industry or self-help books. I just think that you have to be careful about thinking that there's an easy way.

Because even though sometimes the truth is simple, and how to handle things and how to improve things can be simple, it's almost never going to be easy. And it is more often than not going to be hard. What's the difference? A simple example. You want to lose weight? Assuming you're healthy and your systems are functioning well? Eat less, move more. You'll lose weight. That's pretty simple. It's not easy, right? binging, emotional eating, lethargy, depression, all these other things get crowded in, work,

commitments, family. So sometimes the secret, the way, the seven habits, you know, the inside way that these rich and famous do that. The idea that there's a specific way or process or plan that works all the time for everyone is a little deceptive, and that's my concern about it. and that's my concern about it. Now, this builds on the idea that there is a cycle in life about what's happening and what its impact may well be on a society or an individual. Part of it is that hard times make strong people. Strong people make good times. Good times make weak people. Weak people make hard times. I've talked to you about this before. Very, very old nugget aphorism philosophy.

I don't even really know where it comes from. It's kind of hard to source. Maybe you know. But it doesn't matter. It's not an intelligence test. It's about just testing the intelligence of it. So hard times make strong people. Okay.

That can be true. Hard times can also break people. Hard times can kill people. Hard times absolutely change people. Hard times can kill people. Hard times absolutely change people. The question becomes, what do you do in these moments? What reasoned choices do you make? What tactics do you employ? To whom do you ask for help? How do you support your goals and ambitions? Once. Now we're getting somewhere, right? What do you do in hard times? Hard times are coming. Change is coming. Good change, bad change. What's the difference? Well, taking the extremes out of it. There is this avenue of perspective that I keep talking about because

I keep being challenged by it in my own life. And I'll turn around here because it's getting windy because we're by the water. You have the choice to see things the way you decide to see them. People use the word Pollyannish. Don't be Pollyannish. You know, I actually read several of the books in the series about Pollyanna. I don't have any problem with you being Pollyanna or me being Pollyanna. She chose to see situations in her life a certain way.

Even if to most of us they would have been devastating or bad or obvious misfortune. She chose not to see that. And so we use it as this kind of derisive way of saying that you're basically delusional. You don't get the nature of your reality. But let's think about it. We're walking, we're talking talking but what we really should be doing and hopefully what this helps you do is think think for yourself think think again read about what you're thinking read or listen or understand or

reach out to get different ideas about what you think. So if you like the way you look, then that's that. Oh yeah, but this guy looks terrible to you, maybe to many. But the question is, how does he feel about himself? How does she feel about herself, her situation, her relationship, her employment, her health, her well-being, her opportunities, her lifestyle? How does she feel about these things? Because look, we all know, right, in ourselves and in others, people can have so much and feel they have nothing. And people can have little, but it can be enough. You know, and then you start figuring out, well, which

of the one million different rules and sayings and stories and concepts do I plug in here to this situation? Am I supposed to say it's not about what you want, it's about wanting what you have? Is that what it is? Is that the one that works here? And that's the tricky part about, you know about reading self-help stuff and leaning on the understandings and reckonings of others. You really have to do what we want to do least. Okay? And that is struggle.

Life is pain management. Oh, that's cynical. I don't think so. Disappointment, challenges, problems, pain, it's coming. It's in there. What it means and what you make of it is up to you. Now, many of us want to divorce ourselves from the responsibility.

We want others to take care of it. How we just let it happen. State of surrender. Feeling powerless. And that is rarely the case. Well, wait a minute. You said you only control so much. That's right, it doesn't mean you're powerless.

So, the question is, in given situations and circumstances, what can you do? You know, that's why my buddy Joshua Medcalf, who you guys know from Chop Wood, Carry Water, How on the Stone, all his other books. Work in the Dark is a great idea. And he has a simple directive of putting first things first.

How you prioritize. And that's really good. I happen to really suck at that. Very often, I kind of do it in reverse and I build my way up to what I need to do by just getting anything done. Just motivating anything. Like even this walk today. juggling a lot of different flavors of suck in my life. This huge window in my house, this pane of glass just shattered out of nowhere. Weird. And now I've got to figure out how to get it fixed. And, you know, someone told me that when a problem is about money,

count yourself fortunate. Okay. But it's still something to deal with. It wasn't feeling motivated. Kind of hard to breathe. So I didn't want to do anything. And I've eventually mustered to getting out and doing this.

So the point is, what are you going to do with the circumstance? What are you going to do with the hard time? And that's going to decide whether or not it makes you strong. Somebody leaves you, you lose a job, you lose a friend, you lose money, you get hurt, you get sick. A lot of these things could really do you dirty, put you on a path that is decidedly worse than where you were. Or you can click one of the three, right? You can figure out what to do that, if it doesn't change the situation altogether, mitigates it, reduces it, adjusts it somewhat

to make it manageable. Check that box of accepting what it is that you can't deal with. That's really, you know, an important concept. You hear about it in recovery circles all the time, Recovery circles all the time. Accepting what you can't change. Now, again, this is about struggle. And accepting that there is suffering. We never want to talk about it. We always want to pretend it doesn't really happen.

Keep it quiet. People say they feel badly for you in it. But a lot of people feel that trouble is contagious. And they kind of fade on you when you're not an easy friend or when whatever you offered them isn't there anymore so you have to look at that as well and then say okay i am in the suck this is i have to struggle this isn't going to be fast this isn't going to be fast. This isn't going to be easy. But I want it fast. I want it easy. I want this to go away. I know, and that's where self-medicating comes from, and self-delusion, and self-talk. That is a lie. All comes in.

That's not what acceptance is. Acceptance isn't just surrender, okay? Acceptance is a reasoned choice. It doesn't mean that something's over. It means this is the way it is. It is what it is for now until what? It depends on the situation. And there's also the issue of whether or not you can make do with whatever the change is. So, what can you do to change it when it comes your way? What can you do

to accept it? And that gets, for me, that's most of life, by the way. Acceptance is very active. It's not passive. It's, okay, this is how much my body can take in terms of working out, stress, disappointment, negativity, whatever it is. And what tools do I have? Is forgiveness of a person or a situation or yourself relevant? Will that help you get to a different place? Will change people places and things? Will changing how you live or how you think, will that help? This is a part of acceptance also. No, that's changing it. No, because

sometimes you're not going to be able to stop what it is. Let's make it simple. The company where you work gets sold. They reduce the workforce, closes, whatever. They're out. Well, you can't make them stay open. You can get another job.

Right. When? What? Where? How much? Okay? There's going to be so much you control, so much you don't. What do you do with what you can't change?

So it's not just necessarily passive. But we don't want to do this struggling, suffering. And we have it everywhere in society. There's struggle and there's suffering. And we don't really like to talk about it. We don't really like to talk about how to do it. People wear it as some kind of pedigree of pain that makes wherever they are more impressive.

Everybody needs a hard luck story these days. I came from nothing. I was given nothing. The privileged, the elite, this new enemy that used to be the ideal, the elite, this new enemy. It used to be the ideal, right? I remember listening to the older generation talking about their American dreams and wanting some money so that they could give their family a better life

and get the things they wanted and they needed. And that would be great. They saw wealth as part of the dream. Now it's like something that you point to is like poison. And of course, a lot of that is just politics and people playing with your head to divide us and motivate you to follow whatever they want. But it's something worth thinking about.

You notice how you probably, when you're having a great day, there's almost like an embarrassment to it. How often do people come in and you say, hello, how are you doing? Oh man, I'm doing great. I just bought this stock and it wound up going up. My kid just did this. Oh, listen to this braggart. Oh, the arrogance.

Oh, they're condescending. Oh, can you believe they're so full of themselves? Right? But when they come in and they're totally down about whatever's going on and negative, there's something more satisfying in that sometimes for some of us. Think about that. Why? Because a lot of our measurements of ourselves are relative.

And that was always the magic in daytime TV. Put people on the stage who were really messed up. Make you feel better about whatever you're dealing with. Look at these people. Glad I'm not her. Glad I'm not him. But think about it. People are nervous to tell you when things are going well. When they're feeling good, or they just ignore it with one of these empty salutations.

How you doing? Oh, yeah, all good. All good. You? You know, it's empty or aqueous. Why? Because we don't know what to do with our pain and how to communicate, how to help, how to reach out for help even though everybody's struggling everybody's suffering but we don't ever think about it we don't really exist in it because we want it to be limited and ignored and put away and avoided

but change is happening anyway. It's coming anyway, whether you like it or not, whether it's good or bad, or it depends on how you see it. And the struggle, the acceptance, the understanding, these are the hardest things, and these are the things we do least that we do worst.

People do all kinds of things to their face and their body to make themselves look a different way, praying that they'll feel a different way. But they had the power to feel a different way before they did any of it now I'm not judging what people decide to do everybody's on their own path if it works for you works for you as long as it doesn't hurt you or hurt me you know this is what works for you okay you shouldn't really care what I think about it asking people their opinion is a step in a dangerous direction.

So you don't always have to keep your own counsel, but you should ask why you need somebody else's take. Do you like the color of the paint? What do you want to know what I think? If I like it, I'll tell you. So, very often when I'm walking and I think about what's going on in my life, I am immediately dissatisfied.

And I see all these things that just drive me really down. And look, I could very easily say what you may be thinking when I say that to you, which is, boy, oh boy, does he not know how many blessings he has in his life. First of all, pain is personal. Second, just because you see someone who's like, I don't know, like some millionaire or something like that.

Elon Musk, okay? Super wealthy, genius, access to really whatever he wants. That doesn't seem too happy to me. What does that tell you? It's the power of perspective. You know? You are how you decide to be. you are how you decide to be. You feel how you decide to feel.

You're happy if you decide that you're happy. Yeah, but that can be delusional. No, that's what you say. That's what you say. Now, I'm not saying that somebody sells immolating and they think they're getting a suntan. You know, fire is hot. It burns. Being burned sucks.

I get it. But what you decide to do with that wound and how to recover from it and what it means to you in terms of what you appreciate differently in your life and how you decide to see it is your reasoned choice.

Not subject to anybody else's inclinations or definitions or preferences. You have to be the master of your own fate, even when you are not in control of your own fate. You're on the boat. The boat's heading towards very rough water. Yeah, but I don't really steer the boat. I'm not the captain.

I'm sitting in the back. But you're going to decide how you take the ride. And you have the ability to pay attention to what's coming. And to see what's ahead. Try to shout guidance. And you get to choose what your mindset is going to be about what you're about to go through. And how you'll go through it. So it doesn't matter if you're the one behind the wheel.

You still have the power of figuring out and dealing with and the perspective about whatever is happening. And there's real strength in that. There's real power in that. There's real help in that. But it's hard. It's really hard. And it's hard to do consistently to rely on things to help get us through. Right? Man, you lean on your faith in hard times. Why? Because you're scared.

You feel powerless. You feel like you're not enough. So that you desperately pray that something more powerful can fix, can save. Now, I'm not judging it, okay? It's certainly what's in my background. But the point is, you know the joke, the guy's hanging off the side of the cliff, and people keep offering him help, and he keeps saying, no, no, no, God will save me, and eventually he falls and he dies.

He's like, God, you didn't save me. And God says, I sent the guy with the rope, I sent the guy with the ladder, I mean, what do you want me to do? You know what I'm saying? The point of that joke is that very often your faith should empower you to see your own resources and your own resolve. To find that inspiration to motivate yourself not to wait for something or someone

else to do it for you. Change is coming. Change is always coming. How you handle it is up to you, even if you're not completely in control of it. And that's okay. You can make anything okay. A mentor of mine always says, life is good.

And when, yeah, he was like at the bottom of his emails and all that stuff. And I would say to him, yeah, life is good for you. And he'd say, no, life is good, period. I said, well, what about when life is bad? What about when you're broke and you're sick and people die? And he says the opportunity for more is all you can hope for. And that means life is by definition good as long as there is life, even if it's a life of struggle, even if it's a life of pain, because there's a chance for opportunity. There's a chance that change will come that will make a positive difference, because the only thing that's bad is no life. Now, to me, that's heady stuff, and it is not an easy sell on me.

I really struggle with that. But I think he's right. I think he's right. It's just that sometimes something can be simple but hard. And that definition, that reality, is kind of true, right? But life is certainly good if the definition of what makes it not good is the absence of life or death.

So anything short of death, you're still in the game. Okay, I'll accept that. It's kind of a low bar, but it works for him, and he's like a super powerful and wealthy and influential guy. So maybe it should be good enough for me. It isn't yet, but I'm working on it. At least I got out and took this walk.

At least I took the time before I took this walk to write down these ideas and think about them and order them in a way that I hope would flow for you. Hard times make strong people depending on what the people do with the hard times. That will determine. And sometimes it's just. Bearing it.

Sometimes it's just. Continuing to go. And live. And get up. And check the boxes that you need to check. Sometimes it's doing that with wide-eyed appreciation that you're able to do it at all. And time can be a very powerful thing on its own. There are all these other circumstances, conditions, probabilities,

permutations playing out around you that you are aware of and unaware of that can influence your reality and your condition. So just keep going. Keep going. My grandfather used to say in his broken English, punch a punch, a punch, a fight, a fight, a fight. Just keep going. in English. Puncher, puncher, puncher. Fighter, fighter, fighter. Just keep going. Keep going and try to do the next right thing. Try to stay open

eyed about your opportunities, your challenges, what you can do, what you have to accept and how. Change is not something to be avoided because you can rarely avoid it. So think about it. Think about what's happening.

Do that hard work, that struggle of often the hardest thing. It's not that digging the hole is the hardest thing or doing the planting. Very often it's the maintenance. It's that you got to go out there and weed again. You've got to tie this up. You've got to clip that. You've got to deal with this varmint or that one. Maintenance can be a pain in the ass.

It is not the satisfaction of a big job well done. But that's struggle. That's why I do the gardening. I mean, I love the vegetables, don't get me wrong. But the work, the toil has a metaphor for what I'm trying to do in other areas of my life, especially where I can't, where I can't make it what I want it to be on my own. That's tough. That's about acceptance. So you see what I'm doing to be on my own. That's tough. That's about acceptance. So you see what I'm doing here, right?

You see how there's this interconnectedness and interdependence of these ideas. The ideas are simple. That's why there's so many awesome books out there about how to live, how to get better, how to lose weight, whatever it is. There's so many ways and secrets and processes and plans. It doesn't matter.

Any diet will work if you stick to it. Any exercise plan that has you moving more than you were before and you do so consistently is going to work. You save money, you'll have more. You save money, you'll have more. You spend less, you'll have more. It's can you do it? Can you apply the rigor? Can you power the perspective that you need to get to where and how you want to be?

Because the change is coming. You do not have the ability to keep tomorrow away. The question for you is how much are you going to participate in Winnipeg Coombs?