The One You Feed - Randy Scott Hyde

Episode Date: February 11, 2014

Randy's 30 Day Challe    This week on The One You Feed we have Randy Scott Hyde.We fell in love with Randy's blog, Filling My Soul Hole, The Ongoing Battle to Stick it To Depression. It is a truly compelling read. It is funny, erudite and poignant and has a lot to teach us about Feeding Our Good Wolf. It is based on Shawn Achor's TED talk about 5 simple steps to being happier.Randy Scott Hyde is a writer who grew up in a small refinery town in SE Texas. He got the heck out of there and received his MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and a Bachelors of Music from the University of Texas. Randy is also a professional fundraiser for San Francisco non-profits.In This Interview Randy and I discuss...The One You Feed parable.What his 30 Day Challenge is and why he did it.How clear action and direction can help fight depression.The role accountability plays in making personal changes.What are the 5 happiness tasks recommended by Shawn Achor.Whether they worked for Randy.How rigidity is the enemy in making changes.The critical role of momentum.How a random act of kindness turned into a spiritual experience.What happened when the 30 days were up.What Randy is doing now.Randy Scott Hyde LinksRandy Scott Hyde homepageThe 30 Day ExperimentShawn Achor Ted TalkShawn Achor HomepageSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many times in the past, I've decided, you know, I'm going to go on a juice cleanse for 20 days and have nothing but juice. And, you know, by day one, dinner time, I'm having a pizza. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor,

what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you we have the answer go to really no really dot com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign jason bobblehead the really no really podcast follow us on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts our guest today is randy scott hy. He's a writer who grew up in a small refinery town in Southeast Texas. He got the hell out of there and went on to earn his MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and a bachelor's of music from the University of Texas. He's also a professional fundraiser for San Francisco nonprofits. But we first discovered Randy when reading his amazing blog,

Filling My Soul Whole, The Ongoing Battle to Stick It to Depression. We had a great time talking to Randy in spite of the fact that he describes himself as a miserable fuck. Welcome to the show, Randy. We are glad to have you. Thank you. Glad to be here. So our podcast is based on the old parable where there's a grandfather who's talking to his Thank you. Glad to be here. who represents greed and hate and fear. And the grandson stops and looks at his grandfather and he says, well, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So this podcast is really about how people feed that good wolf in their life.

So I'd like to start off by just asking you what that parable means to you and how it sort of applies to you in your life and in your writing. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think before this blog project, had you asked me that question, I'd probably say it means that there's a lot of self-entitled people who have too much time on their hands. But after this blog project, I would answer that very differently. this blog project, I would answer that very differently. Um, it's, I think it's really speaking to that. You have a choice. You know, I think, you know, I've dealt with depression for a long time and I always thought, you know, this is just who I am. Sometimes I'm a son of a bitch and sometimes that just happens. But through this work, like I've learned that that's not so like you

have choice in the matter. So, you know, the idea of, you know, the one you feed is the one that wins, I think is pretty spot on. Um, so that's kind of, I think that's kind of how I'm moving forward now is just remembering that in any given situation, like I have a choice in my response, have a choice in how I see the world. And that, that wasn't there before. Excellent. And so maybe for our listeners, you could describe a little bit about the experiment that you did, you know, maybe a short, short description of kind of what it was. And, and then we can sort of jump into some specifics about it. Yeah, you bet. Um, it, it started, um, my grandmother passed away, um, about a year and a half, two years ago and she raised me and she was really my,

my only family. Um, so the passing of her hit, hit hard. And I'm someone who already kind of deals with depression. So it hit doubly hard. And, you know, at the same time, I was developing a drinking problem, having a bottle to two bottles of wine every day and just getting in a rut. So a friend of mine actually asked me, like, you know, what are you going to do to take care of yourself? And of course that never occurred to me to take care of myself. Um, so I started thinking about, you know, what's something kind that I could do for my grandmother. And I thought, well, I could take care of myself.

So it only kind of supported what her advice was. And then I saw that Ted talk by, um, Sean Aker Sean Aker, who really kind of condensed the search for happiness down into really kind of basic tasks. And I'm someone who needs kind of clear directions like that. You know, I've been going to therapy for a long time and just kind of talking things out. This wasn't really doing it because I didn't feel like I had something solid to kind of really do every day. And so his suggestion really resonated with me. But, you know, I know myself pretty well and I'm probably not going to do it every day unless I've got someone watching me. So I came up with the idea of doing a blog, just kind of documenting all five of those tasks every single day and doing it for 30 days. And it, you know, I sent it out to just friends and acquaintances and it ended up kind of taking

a life of its own and went somewhat viral and was getting probably about five, six thousand hits a day towards the end. So it was a big deal. And it was really, it was a big deal for me. And it was really helpful, you know, having comments and encouragement from people and knowing that people were waiting to see what I'd done that day and if I had done it. And it worked, which was the crazy thing that I didn't quite expect. But it was great. which was the crazy thing that I didn't quite expect, but it was great. So you spent 30 days then doing each of these five tasks, which later on in your writings you started to refer to,

you weren't going to talk about them as tasks any longer, but as tools, which I thought was sort of an interesting transformation from, hey, these are things that I kind of have to do a task to, these are things that enable me to be happy. So did you find that by doing those things that you were able to increase your happiness? Oh, absolutely. Enormously. But, you know, in very subtle ways, you know, it's not like you just wake up one day laughing, you know, it's different. You're like, my perspective of the world changed. My perspective of my brain changed. You just see things differently. So it's not any kind of, I don't know, it's hard to explain.

It's just, you know, back to that parable, like just knowing that I had a choice and how I see things. And could you describe what the five tasks were? I think they're tasks that Sean described pretty specifically. Can you just say what those five were that you were doing? specifically, can you just say what those five were that you were doing? Yeah, it's exercise, three new things every day that you're grateful for, journal about something good that happened that day, meditate, and a random act of kindness. And they all ended up doing their own specific thing. You know, there were some people who kind of joined this journey part of the way through,

and, you know, some of them were saying, well, I'm only doing two, or, you know, this one's too hard, so I'm not going to think about that one too much. But I think all five of them are important. Those seem to be themes, those five things in one form or the other seem to be pretty commonplace activities that are chosen to increase happiness. So talk a little bit about – you referenced sort of throughout your writing and at the end of different things about how much work it is. Actually, I think you have a quote at one point where you said, getting happy is a lot of work, which is probably why most people are unhappy. It's far easier. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah.

Well, you know, I mean, especially when you're depressed, the depression kind of has its own body state to it. You know, it's heavy. It's tired. Doesn't want to do things. Doesn't want to do things doesn't want to participate so especially I think if you're coming from that state you know this stuff takes effort you know it was surprising to me that something as simple as seemingly simple I should say is meditation like just

sitting there ended up being one of the hardest things, especially in the first two weeks. And the random act of kindness, I think in one blog entry, I talked about how that takes a lot of courage because you have to interact with people. And as someone who is depressed and introverted, it's really hard to reach out to people in that way. But the more you do it, it kind of builds on itself, and it gets easier to do. You get a little more confident in the action. But you miss a day, and it's harder the next day. I think it's just like exercising.

If you skip a couple of runs around the park, when you come back to it, it's a lot harder. Yeah, we talk about momentum here a fair amount, which is, you know, really that it is very hard to get started. But once you can get moving with things, it becomes easier. And another phrase we've used a couple times that I'd heard in the past was that depression hates a moving target, which sort of is in a line, you know, kind of with everything you said. And I think the other thing, you know, in addition to these tasks being sort of perhaps

hard in themselves is simply fitting that much stuff in. And you talked about that rigidity could be the end of you and that you had to learn to be flexible and creative in how you got those five things done every day, that if you sort of stuck to it has to be this way or that way, you would never work them in. Can you give a couple examples of ways in which you sort of – those tasks were done differently throughout the period so people can get some idea of some of the flexibility involved? Yeah, well, you know, when I went in, I thought about all five tasks very separately. You know, and in my head, I'm like, I'm ticking through these chores, I got to get done every day. But because sometimes you just don't have time to really kind of consider each one separately, it occurred to me that I could collapse some.

Like I could do 15 minutes of yoga, which has a natural lead into meditation. So that was like a 20-minute grouping if I built in five minutes for meditation at the end. Walking home from work, you know, I have to get home anyway. And sometimes the train takes longer than actually walking it. So I can get an exercise that way. The random acts of kindness, you know, sometimes a coworker would have a hard time and I would just do something nice to kind of brighten their day. So not having to really go out and look for it and spend the energy looking for something specific to do, just kind of staying flexible, let it come to you, you know? And the interesting thing is that it came up all the time. There were always kind of natural, easy ways to fit them into the day. Some of them are

a little harder, like exercise, you know, I mean, if you don't live close enough to walk to work, then that's not an option. But you know, walking around at lunch or something like that. So you know, but I didn't go into it that way. You know, I went into it with a very specific schedule, like, you know, I was gonna do yoga 30 minutes a day, four days a week, and that was going to be it. But that's not always possible, and I think it sets you up for failure. So I think that flexibility component is really important. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out

if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend.

Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win

$500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Can you share, there's a lot of really funny and touching moments and poignant moments in your blog. One that I'd like to spend a minute and talk about is it was during one of your random acts of kindness

where you went to give food to a homeless man, and it sort of went a little bit beyond that. Can you, I think you probably know the one I'm talking about. Can you sort of pick up the story from there? Yeah. Where I work, the homeless population is pretty large outside. And I've been working here for a while. So I get kind of, I think anyone who works in that kind of environment gets really kind of, you know, you put the blinders on. You don't really look at them

because they're going to ask you for money. It's going to be awkward. Someone might hassle you. So you really kind of look straight ahead all the time. But with this random act of kindness, the most obvious one I could do was just right outside, the homeless population being so large, just right at my doorstep. But this was the first time that I really kind of connected with someone before, you know, there'd been other homeless people I had given food to. And it made me a little bolder. Like I started seeing these people as people, not as, you know, homeless people that I need to be afraid of. Um, but it really hit home, um, this one time where I had, uh, picked up a sandwich where I was getting lunch, um, for this guy that I had seen on my way there. And as I walked back, he was sitting in his wheelchair and I gave him the sandwich and he started crying, like sobbing instantly. And, um, so I touched his arm and I said, what's wrong? Are you okay? And he said, yeah, I just didn't think anyone saw me today. And even I still get kind of weepy just thinking about it, but it was so profound.

And I knew that man in that moment. I knew him like I knew myself. I'd struggle with the same thing. I want to be seen. And it was just so human and it was so, I don't know, above the sandwich. The sandwich was meaningless at that point. What he needed at that moment was just to feel like he was part of humanity. And I need that every day too. So it was some greater understanding than I think I probably ever had of someone I don't know. And it still touches me. Yeah, you sort of talk about how there's this reading and talk and sort of this, we're all connected or we're all one, but that you actually had an experience of it in that moment. Yeah. And it's, you know, I just, I still feel like I don't do it justice when I talk about the experience because there aren't really any words for the profundity of the experience. I mean, it was kind of beyond language.

Yeah. I think people describe, you know, for lack of a better word, spiritual experiences that way. It's very difficult to talk about. And I'm reminded of, I don't remember what I was listening to or where I saw it recently, but a guy decided one day that he was going to go out and live the day, live a day as a homeless person. He was going to put on the clothes. And his experience was exactly the same. He said that just the overwhelming awfulness of it was that you

basically did not exist. You know, nobody saw you, everybody ignored you, tried to look away. You just, the, the, the complete reduction of, of you as a human was, was far worse than any of the physical sort of being hungry or being cold or any of those things. So I think that's, that's a, you've kind of touched upon something that does seem to be common for, for that, that sort of situation. Yeah. And before that, you know, I felt a little guilty about giving homeless people food, you know, like, it just seems like, you know, I'm the white guy with a good job who's

doing something nice for the poor folk, you know, like, and it just didn't feel right. But like, in that moment, it changed. Like, you know, I wasn't the white guy with a good job helping the poor folk. Like, I was another human helping another human who needed it. And by that same token, like he was helping me, like he gave me insight to something that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Yeah, I have a, we live in Columbus, Ohio, so we don't have quite the same homeless population that you do in San Francisco. And, you know, I'm a little bit further out than downtown, but I frequently give money to, you know, homeless people when I'm out there.

And people are always like, you know, that's not doing any good. And that's, and, and my point is always, it's really, you know, semi-selfishly it by giving, I sort of remember how fortunate I am. It helps me to recognize in that moment, like I have the capacity to do that and I'm lucky enough to do that. And, and it is sort of that, that connection to another person for a minute. Right. One of the things that I think is really interesting about your story is you did this 30 day. You did this for 30 days. You wrote, you know, you wrote about it every day.

Your life definitely got a lot better. Let's talk about what happened after those 30 days, because I think that's equally profound. Yeah. After the 30 days, I collapsed, internally collapsed. I didn't realize how much I needed that accountability and how much I needed people involved in it with me. And it was hard and I floundered for a good 20, 30 days. I mean, there was a random act of kindness here and there, and sometimes I'd interesting how quickly it can all go away. You know, I noticed in two weeks of not doing them consistently, like I was quickly heading

back to old patterns, you know, got off work, picked up a bottle of wine. Um, and it just, you know, I mean, your, your demons hold fast for a long time. And anytime you give them an opportunity to get back in, they'll take it. So I had, I had to get back on the blog. I mean, the writing itself, I think was the thing that was the most exhausting doing it every day. You know, it takes about an hour and a half to two hours out of every day to put those together. So I didn't realize like how much that was adding to the work. So, you know, having an excuse to not do that particular one, I think, incorrectly gave me the excuse not to do any of them. But, you know, I think it just kind of further shows how well that stuff works and how much they are tools, you know. I've been back on it for probably about a week and a half now, and the difference is instantaneous. amazing to me how, you know, we all know on some level that doing things like that, right, or some,

some measure of those things makes us feel better. But yet how astonishingly hard it remains to do those things and how and it just it, it baffles me. And I think it is just it's, it's this idea, I think we have, I've been really thinking a lot about the idea of comfort versus happiness and that comfort seems to be the default. Like I just – I've got to be comfortable. I want to be comfortable. And as long as we – at least for me, as long as I remain in that comfortable place and I'm not pushing beyond that, I am not happy. I am – I become listless. And it is pushing beyond that, I am not happy. I am, I, I, I become listless and it is pushing beyond that, you know, doing the things that you're talking about, you know,

exercising every day is not comfortable. Meditation is decidedly not comfortable in, you know, at least for me in a variety of different ways. And so I, but I, I always am amazed by how hard that stuff is when even, you know, with as much experience as I have knowing that those things are positive. And I think it's interesting that you sort of hit on for you, you know, two sort of things. One is like a defined plan or a goal and B is that sort of external accountability. And I think I'm similar. You know, we've – me and some friends have done this thing where we have sort of like an exercise competition, you know, at the beginning of the new year. And it's like sort of a, you know, who can lose the most percent of body fat.

But it's remarkable how well everybody does during that stretch because there's a clear goal. There's a clear focus. You know, we can taunt each other. You know, we can taunt each other and, you know, I mean, there's a focus and accountability to it as my co-host here shows me his rapidly expanding midsection to reiterate how much better it is when we're actually on that plan. But I'm just astounded by how those two things, an actual plan and accountability for, you know, at least for some of us who struggle with that stuff is so important. Yeah, it's remarkable. And, you know, I'm not sure where it comes from. You know, I don't know if it's some kind of, you know, focus that you learn early on in childhood where, you know, retirement and not working or something like that, you know, not having to have a job is the goal. And, um, but it's, it's just, it doesn't work. I think work

is the key. I agree. I I've more, and I was just, I was just writing something to somebody recently talking about that. Like, I don't know where I got the idea that what I want, you know, that the best thing is to have nothing to do and to just be able to do whatever I want, because that is decidedly not the best thing for me. Oh God, it's the enemy. Yeah. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by.

Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging.

Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Oh, yeah, Really, No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a line that you start off very early on, and I think it speaks a little bit to this sort of having a plan and accountability and a personality type. And I'd like to read it because, A, I just enjoy it and I think it's good.

You say, moderation and I have never really been close. He knocks on the door a lot, but I'm typically too buried under excess to answer, which usually means any new thing I take on, I take on hard and then burn out. Today, I invited moderation in for morning coffee, and we had a nice chat. So can you talk about the role of moderation in your in happiness for you? Yeah, you know, I went into this, knowing that I have that and my personality. knowing that I have that in my personality. And many times in the past, I've decided I'm going to go on a juice cleanse for 20 days and have nothing but juice.

And by day one, dinner time, I'm having a pizza. So it never works. Pizza's kind of a juice in some way. Did you run the pizza through your juicer? That's a great idea, and next time I'm going to try that. So, you know, I didn't want to fail at this because I knew how much I needed it. So I wasn't going to do it that way. And, you know, back to the rigidity thing, too.

You know, I make a plan, and if that plan doesn't work, then it's an utter And, you know, back to the rigidity thing too, you know, I, I make a plan and if that plan doesn't work, then it's an utter failure and I drop it. So my, my two rules going in were be flexible and be moderate. So, you know, instead of going out trying to run two miles, my first day of the, you know, the exercise work, instead I started slowly. The meditation, normally I would have gone in trying for an hour, but I went with 10 minutes, worked my way up to 15. I don't think I would have been successful had I not made sure that moderation was a part of that. Yeah, I think it's critical.

We had a guest on recently, Dan Millman, who's an author of a couple of things. But he talks about, you know, just start really small with something. I mean, he almost exaggerates, like, just do one jumping jack a day for 30 days. And then you'll have an exercise routine. And, you know, you double it by doing two, which is obviously taking it a little bit extreme, but it's the idea of start really small and then connect the dots. And there's that, that theme seems to come up an awful lot in things, which is, you know, a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. Um, right. Which is, and it builds over time, you know, you're, you're able to do more, you want to do more. But if you start too big,

you want to do less, and then it's not at all. Yep. And one of the things that, you know, I think is, you know, is, you know, as we talk about sort of feeding the good wolf is sort of how to sort of stay consistent with doing that. And I'd like to read another thing that you wrote that I thought was really interesting and sort of ties a lot of what we've been talking about together here. And you were sitting down with a friend and you were saying, hey, a lot of people, you know, as I started to do this, I heard from a lot of other people who said, hey, I'm going to do the same thing. And over time, it seemed like a lot of those folks sort of dropped off and you kept going. And so I'm going to pick up from there. It says, I don't know why they dropped off. For all I know, they haven't. But I know why and you kept going. And so I'm going to pick up from there. It says,

I don't know why they dropped off. For all I know, they haven't. But I know why I'm still going. I know why I'm still at this almost two weeks later, despite all the time it takes, despite the frustrations, and especially despite all my failed attempts to help myself in the past. It's because finally, wanting something different is now stronger than my fear of the work it takes to get it. Said another way, my focus has changed from daily irritations and hardships to the desire for something better in the long run. Hope has the upper hand in this struggle for Randy's soul, and it's riding the train of tenacity and community to get me there. Which I think is a very eloquently written sort of way of summarizing a lot of what we just talked about. Yeah, man, I'm good.

You are good. I haven't heard that out loud. It's very, for all our listeners, we'll have links on the page. It is a tremendously entertaining and enjoyable read as well as, you know, at least for me. And I think a lot of people, it's why you've got so many people reading it and responding because it's very, you know, we all wrestle with this stuff. We all wrestle with how do we make better choices in life? How do we do the things that we know, you know, are good for us versus, you know,

making a ton of choices that feel good right this second, but don't serve us in the long run. Yeah. It's hard work. You know, and it's interesting, too, that the writing component, I think, for me, became kind of a sixth task, you know, spending time on the thing that I love to do. And it's interesting that I had spent so much time before working on fiction. And then my fiction writing was always a struggle. It was always hard to get to the page. I couldn't find readers for it.

I couldn't get anything published. But somehow, like through this project, like I've learned that personal narrative writing is much easier for me. It's much more comfortable. And that was another thing that this project led me to that I wouldn't have known before. So I would, you know, I think I'd say my conclusion that I would add a sixth pass to all of that. And it's do the thing you love every day. Yeah, that I noticed that when you said that in our, you know, the very first interview we did for the podcast, we brought a guy on.

He's a musician and an author, and we said, what does feeding the good wolf mean to you? And his answer for it was feeding the good wolf for him was making the time to do his art. That was how he fed his good wolf, and we talked about the challenges of, um, of carving out time to do that because it is usually one of the first things to go in a busy schedule on a crowded life. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. In addition to a, uh, a good writer, you are a tremendous artist. The, uh God. These stick figures. I think that's going kind of far, Eric. All right, it might be. I think they are, well, they, you know,

if art is the conveying of emotion, I think they do fairly well. But to call you a tremendous artist, you're right, might be a stretch. But these stick figures definitely add to the experience. And hopefully, as you do your weekly updates, you'll keep at them. So tell us a little bit about what things look like for the blog and for you moving forward. I know you've got some plans for some upcoming events, the bike ride.

Let's talk a little bit about that. Yeah, well, you know, I was looking for a new goal that had a specific deadline to it, and I work for the AIDS Foundation, and it's kind of assumed that you help out on this ride in some way. on this ride in some way. So I could either choose to be a writer or a roadie who does all the logistics and, you know, cheers everybody on. And it's a pretty significant bike race. It's 545 miles from San Francisco to LA, and you're riding probably about 100 miles a day. and you're riding probably about 100 miles a day. You know, the hard part for me is just making sure that I'm not solely focused on the exercise portion of these five tools, but really doing them all. So whereas the goal is focused on exercise specifically,

it's really just kind of another, I don't know, gold date for me to do all of these every day again. Um, and my, my hope is that this, it becomes less like work and more like habit. Um, and, and that's been the hardest part for me, You know, the 30 days, it did get easier after day 29, but it was still an effort. And I think, you know, that's kind of what I got focused on after the 30 days is doing this effort again all the time and starting back up on it again. It's still an effort mode and probably will be for some time, but fingers crossed that seven months will finally get this under my belt. Yeah, I think maybe to some degree. I think, though, that we have this idea that at some point these things will become habit

and once it's habit, there won't be effort. And I just don't – I sort of have started to kind of give up on that idea that it will ever be totally easy. I agree it's certainly easier at some points than others. But I think a life worth living is kind of always going to take some degree of effort. And I think I agree with that, and I'm totally open to the possibility that it never becomes habit. agree with that and I'm totally open to the possibility that it never becomes habit. But, you know, seven months over one month, I've got to hope that at least get it down some, you know, somehow. Exactly. And it's, you know, my challenge is, and I try, you know, I've been trying to do some variation of these sort of things for a long time

and it's a consistency and it's just a time. I just find myself exercise is the one for me that becomes the biggest challenge. The other ones I can kind of fit in, but exercise always seems to be the one that I wrestle with. And I think one of the things you did in years, which was really good, and I should probably just adopt, although I don't live close enough to walk to work, but just go outside, just out and go, 30 minutes. Actually, Chris does that a lot. He tends to just put on his headphones and head out for an hour of walking,

which definitely falls in the exercise category. Yeah. that a lot. He tends to just put on his headphones and head out for an hour of walking, which is, which is definitely falls in the exercise category. Yeah. For some reason, the meditation one is the hardest for me. And I'm not someone I would describe as, you know, someone who's scared to be alone with themselves, but I don't know, for some reason, that one just always kind of stunts me. I've always struggled with meditation a lot until, well, and you know, there's no declaring victory as early, you know, but I seem to have found a little bit more of a routine and found it to be a little bit easier as soon as I, but I think mine was really about adjusting my expectation, which was that there is no right or, you was that there is no right or wrong to it. My mind can be extremely busy. I can be half asleep.

It just doesn't matter. It's the fact that I sat there and did it that matters. And I stopped sort of looking for an experience. I kept thinking that I should be having some experience. And I sort of reframed that somebody I heard, you know, was talking about meditation sort of as like mental hygiene. It's like brushing your teeth, you know, you're not really thinking about how well you brushed your teeth, you just, you're brushing your teeth. And once I sort of let go of all that,

it's been a little bit easier. But I agree with you, traditionally, that has been the hardest, you know, a very difficult thing to stick with. i don't i'm not really sure why i you know i don't i don't either i think part of it for me is that i never know what's gonna happen like i have no idea what state i'm gonna be in when i do it you know sometimes i i sit and all the things that come up are angry but i didn't feel angry going into it or you, you know, sometimes for some reason, I can't stop thinking about sex, like, where did that come from? So I never know what it's going to be. Yep. Yeah, it definitely has, it can go a lot of different ways. And I think that's the, you know, and you talk about it a little bit sort of, you talked about how

meditation became easier for you when you just sort of stopped fighting it to some degree. You accepted, I'm going to be here for 15 minutes or I'm going to be here for 20 minutes. Well, I think we've covered most of the questions that I wanted to ask. Chris, do you have anything you want to cover? You know, I don't think I do. You guys covered a lot. Randy, is there anything you feel like we want to kind of wrap up with or anything you want to sort of leave us with to put you on the spot?

That one I wasn't prepared for. No, you know, I think the only thing I'd say is this stuff works. And if you haven't done it, get on it. Excellent. And I am thrilled that you are back on at least weekly. I've been wondering, you know, you and I connected sort of right around, you know, you had just finished a couple of days before and we scheduled this interview and then you kind of, you know, we're, it was kind of radio silence for a while on the blog so i'm uh i'm happy to happy to see you back and look forward to sort of catching up with it uh every week we'll definitely put um we'll definitely put a link to the to the blog in our show notes and um thanks again for your time i really appreciate it

yeah you too eric thank you And thanks for all the encouragement. Take care. Bye-bye. You know, before I get into the final voiceover thing that I always do, I just want to say that if you thought that interview was as awesome as I did, you really should go out to the iTunes store and give us a five-star review at the One You Feed, because we would love you for that. And then here you go.

You can find out more about Randy Scott Hyde and this podcast in our show notes at oneufeed.net slash Randy.