The Chris Cuomo Project - Walk and Talk: Deprivation

Episode Date: May 7, 2023

In a candid and honest Walk and Talk, Chris Cuomo explores whether there’s truth to the notion that less is more.  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

How you doing? Thanks for joining me on another walk and talk. I walked so long I got to put together two little slices of life for you. What's up with deprivation? Asceticism, right? Depriving yourself, doing with less. Why is that a virtue? Why is an abundance a virtue? Well, let's look at some historical context. A lot of philosophy, a lot of religion, a lot of spirituality has been motivated by a desire to provide a salve, a rationale, a remedy for suffering. So there are a lot more people who struggle with not having enough. And enough can mean anything.

Material, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, anything. That's what you need to address. You know, the problem of the world is not that everybody is so well off. You know, people aren't as desperate to believe in something bigger than themselves when they're not looking for some rationale or reason to deal or understand what is so hard, what is so painful in what they're dealing with. So a little historical context. Now, in terms of behaviors, it really is about balance. It really is about balance. Balance is harder than deprivation.

How do we know? Come on. How many of you have done a diet where you lost a ton of weight in three months? And then you gained it back. You can do it, but can you keep doing it? That's balance. Okay? So, for instance, I did this thing with a buddy of mine where i started lifting some weights up to my calories i mean i'm always lifting weights but i started lifting heavier weights this type of

workout called hypertrophic uh weight lifting it's really hard it really sucked i did not enjoy it really sucked i did not enjoy it but got bigger put on weight now i'm like jackets ill fit this is uh not really what i was looking for it was good to know i could still grow a little bit help me deal a little bit with some of the aging process but not really um psychologically and now i'm coming down so when you're a bigger person first cut, if you just get your habits somewhat in check and stop obvious excess, you get a big slab of unneeded you to go away. And now I'm in the real work and the real work is balance. You know, so it's total head trip. But my habits play to excesses. So I have to check it and I have to think about less and less being okay and why I want more and what I'm using it as a substitute for.

Emotional eating, right? Big deal. So that's one context. However, then comes the Lenten paradox. And by the way, in a future couch or walk and talk or both, I'll take you through what is absolutely my favorite religious and spiritual modality, which is Easter, if you're Christian or pagan, because it comes from Estrus, the goddess of fertility. But Lent and, you know, or Quaresma, whatever you want to call it, it all comes from these derivatives of the same ideas

about rebirth and renewal. It's absolutely my favorite modality of my own faith and of so many others. And again, I'm not putting belief on you. You need to believe in nothing bigger than yourself, other than some concepts that put you at the table of serving others and more than yourself alright but those are ideas and not deities so I'll be talking to you about that but but I call it the Lenten paradox people do Lent it's diet time it's time to not do things that you want to do. Why? Jesus, 40 days and 40 nights without. Okay. Okay. But how about this? We call that sacrifice, right? Sacrifice as a word means the act of making something holy. Is dieting holy? Is not eating sweets holy? Is like that WWJD? Is that like what a great person does? Is just not eat dessert? Or, reading, thinking, doing more, more for others, more

of what you believe to be good things. Maybe that should be the period of it. Let me tell you, it's a lot harder than just, you know, doing something that's obviously a benefit just to you, like not eating chocolate every day at 530. Or whatever, maybe that's just me. But the Lenten paradox. that sometimes deprivation, it's not that you're just taking something away. It's about what your goal of maximizing is. So it's not just that, okay, I make a shit ton of money, but I'm never going to get a new car again. Okay. That's, that's your choice. That's fine. If that, if that is a good idea to you, if that feels good to you, fine. But in our society, we kind of see that now,

right? We're like messing with wealth. Now I was raised by a man who had like an allergy to money. My father may rest in peace. He was a public servant pretty much my entire life um and Andrew's the same way it's like the guys first of all Andrew's just cheap Andrew is a fix it guy and he buys old things he fixes them up he makes them nicer than they ever would have been and that's enough for him he doesn't want new he's a built built, not bought guy. And I love it. I love it. And he raised me and I love how he is. I wish I could be more like him in that regard. My father was just an ascetic. The guy was just an ascetic. You want him to come speak? Offering him money was like a guaranteed way to get him to say no. I mean, look, he made money for speaking, but nothing like what he could have. speaking, but nothing like what he could have. So I definitely was new to comforts of not having to worry about what things cost, except when I'm a shit cat. Because, oh, is that scary? When you've got a big life and your cashflow is just gone and nobody wants to touch you. wants to touch you. Are you here? Oh, the numbers come down, baby. The numbers come down. Austerity mode. So we see that now as attack the rich, the elite. They're bad. It's not the American dream,

but are there really a lot of you out there who don't wish you had more money to do things that you want and to do less of what you don't want and to be able to help causes and help people you care about. I mean, you don't dream about that the way I do that. Oh my God. If I like hit it big with this and that, the ability to just be like, Hey man, I heard you struggling with this thing. Bam. Not anymore. You're not, you know, Hey, I heard that you really want to be an electrician but you know you can't get scholarships but boom now you can man I mean that would be awesome I could absolutely have such a more meaningful life in my estimation if I was just giving the

money giving money to people who were struggling and that their life was different because of that money. Because the idea that, you know, money can't fix things is bullshit. Money can't fix everything, obviously. No kidding. Ask somebody with cancer, but, or heart disease, Um, but, but, it can help. Anyway, the point is, we're so fast to jump to the idea that less is more. Sometimes, yes, but context counts. Not with love. Not with generosity.

Not with kindness. Right? Not with perspective. Hit. Okay. Okay. So, don't try to dumb it down. I need less. I gotta get rid of, hey, if that makes you happy, great. If having more makes you happy, great. Oh, you shouldn't tell your happiness to material things. Who says? Jesus. Okay. Okay. But can't two things be true at once?

You know, can't you be a guy who's so excited, or a woman who's so excited about the success that you've had that you always wanted a fill-in-the-blank, certain kind of dog, a shoe, a dress, a fishing reel, a fishing boat, whatever it is. A dream. What's wrong with that? And why must you judge it? And almost always these judgments are set up to make us feel better about our own situation versus those other people. And that's what bothers me about it. That's the mistake.

You want to fix something, fix your need to compare. How many of us can go to a friend's home and be like, holy cow. I cry sometimes when I go to my friends and their big events. You know what I mean? Like their big thing. Here's our house. I just was at dinner with some good friends of mine and Christina's. And they were talking about this new place they got. And they're so happy.

They're so happy about it. They work so hard, and they've been through shit. You know what I mean? People my age, you know, nobody gets through. You ever hear that joke, nobody gets out of this life alive? You know, nobody gets through into their 50s, and you're not dinged up. And they're together, strong, and they're happy.

I'm telling you, it's emotional for me because I love my people so much. You know, it's almost, there's an imbalance there, you know, because I'm a self-loather. So I discount myself and my happiness and I focus on my problems so much that I rely on my feelings for the people around me to kind of compensate for that and keep me, you know, kind of evened out, so to speak. So, I mean, that's okay to be like that.

But many of us are not. Jealous. Keeping up with the Joneses. Oh, they show off with the thing when they had to come up with their new car. Why? Even if you're right about that person and they believe that they should be regarded well because of what they have or where they live or whatever bullshit attribute, that's not you. Why do you have to judge it? Why give it that power if you say it doesn't have that power over you? Or is it truth that really you want those things?

And then instead of trying to find a way for you to get them, you start to take some kind of sick, you know, perverse sense in wanting them not to have it. Wanting bad things to happen to other people. Not me, man. Not me. Man, it's an unhealthy place. I've been there. I live there.

I decided to move. I do not benefit from other people's downfall. I want more. More better. More better. Good for you. Good for me. Hello, you handsome doggies. Look at those guys. Look at those guys. I see them all the time. You should try to think about that. That less is not always more.

It's whatever you need. Okay? Whatever works for you. Sometimes more is more. It's okay to dream big. It's okay to do well. It's okay to be successful. That's awesome. Good for you if you found yourself there. And it's totally fine if you've decided, hey man,

I'm scaling down. Okay, but why are you scaling down? Are you happier that way? Do you want like more money in the bank for later or something like that? The rationale matters also because you're not a different person because you have one coat of 10, five cars or none. One person is not better than the other. It's about how you treat other people. So deprivation as this virtue, I think it's oversold. I think it's oversold, first of all, because one, you can still be just as selfish and self-centered and useless to the people that you have a responsibility to or that you could have one. A value to help what helps you help. See, that's the way I think about it.

Now, look, I know people who have a lifestyle similar to what mine could be, who have less and show less than I do. And I know many, many more who go way bigger in terms of how they live their life. And I have no problem with either unless they start judging me about mine. And then it's going to stay in your lane.

You know, I'm not a judgy person. Why? I got my own problems and I know acutely well what it's like to be judged unfairly and fairly. You know, it doesn't matter if people are right about you. It doesn't mean you want to hear it all the time. You know, most people in your life, you know, usually have a limitation on that. In public life, wow. You know, and whether

you're in it because you see it as honorific, or you see it as just a great avenue to help, or you see it as an avenue to help and you didn't really think it through, which is definitely the category I've been into. I would have never done this if I had known everything that comes along with it. And I know, yes, there's been a lot of good and there's been a lot of bad. But, man, there are been a lot of good, and there's been a lot of bad, but man, there are a lot of other ways, there are a lot of other ways, and I'm not saying that I want to sell everything, go live in the woods, and get rid of my family, you know, it's, I don't think that you can run away from yourself, you can run away from situations. You're going to find new ones.

That's why when it comes to addiction, I'll end on this because there's all this landscaping going on where I'm walking. People, places, and things. It's not about less. It's not about more. It's about what works for you based on what your dream is of who you want to be and how you want to be. Okay? Sometimes you want to lose weight and how you want to be. Okay? Sometimes you want to lose weight, eat less, move more. Okay? So it's both. It's not just one.

You want to be a better person, be better to as many people as you can. And be better to yourself. Start there. I skip that step all the time because I don't think I deserve it. And people can tell me, oh, you shouldn't feel like that. Okay, I appreciate it, but it doesn't matter. That's the blessing and the curse. You get to decide what matters to you in your life. No one else. All right, it's too loud. You do you. Less, more, whatever works. But remember, the only judge at the end of the day you worry about is yourself.

If you're right with yourself, everything else will follow. I know that's true, but man is it hard to do. Good luck with it. Let's get after it.