Life Updates and Fan Questions About Vices

Jon does a solo episode where he talks about where the hell he was at during his 2 month break from the podcast. He answers a question from a fan, and talks a little bit about vices and the importance of having purpose and mission statement.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome back to another episode of the Feel Free podcast, the only podcast that'll tell you to chase your dreams and call you out on all your bullshit, myself included. It's been a while since I did a little solo episode, to be honest. I'm really just checking out the new camera. I got another camera over here too. Also just wanted to give a couple updates on everything that's been going on, trying to make some moves to make the podcast a little more than just a hobby. Give a few updates on what's transpired over the last couple months. I guess you'd view this as a vlog, but fuck it, we're running it as a podcast anyway.

Speaker 1: 0:53

I had somebody comment on one of my posts on Instagram asking how I maneuvered quitting smoking tobacco, which is an interesting topic, because I've been on and off with the habit over the last year, for better or worse mostly worse, we'll say it's for worse for sure. I've definitely noticed that the months that I'm not smoking, I'm doing a lot better in terms of wellness, overall wellness Pretty much every facet of wellness is a lot better off without it. Unfortunately, I just unlocked another one of my vices. I let it creep up on me and I don't really want to be ashamed of it. It actually makes mistakes. It's a failure which has actually spurred me into working on another book other than the hierarchy of habits. I might have mentioned this in an episode over the last couple months that I am starting another book that's going to be called F or working title, but I'd like to touch on fear, failure, forgiveness and freedom. And what better way to kickstart that than with a really bad smoking habit? So, yes, the question was how I maneuvered quitting. Right now I'm 50 days without smoking over the last 14 months now, 14 months since I started casually smoking tobacco. Out of these 14, 15 months, I'd honestly say that 67% of the time I have not been using tobacco. The other 33% of the time I was, I saw a drastic decrease in my creativity. The things I ate changed my diet, exercising habits A lot of woes me crap, hiding under a rock, as usual, but you know that's a common theme of me during my heavy addiction was hiding under my rock and stuff. So it was a very stressful year, I'd like to say. But before I get into the stressful year part, I'd like to talk about the how I outmaneuvered this. I'm trying to answer that question without going on a few tangents, but you can't replace one vice with nothing, I'd like to say, and it is very difficult, in my opinion, to replace your vices with healthy ones If you don't have a good routine set. So which was the inspiration behind the hierarchy of habits, which was supposed to be a step-by-step self-help book about how I replaced bad habits with good ones?

Speaker 1: 3:59

But initially, from the start, you use not so great habits to get rid of the really bad ones. So you know, for the alcohol and the cocaine, the marijuana and the hard drugs, I had used video games and anime as like my free time spender. Also, I had nicotine still through that. So, and then I worked jobs. It's honestly just like trying to keep your mind occupied with whatever that is. So if you're trying to quit something like tobacco, for me I just needed a couple of good days under my belt. So my thing is, I play a lot of video games, mostly strategy video games. I don't do first person shooters or sports games. It's definitely like turn-based strategy, kind of like glorified chess An unhealthy amount, possibly, but it also allows me to start getting the good habits under wrap, like if I had the urge to smoke, I would play video games or watch anime, right. But as long as I kept getting a couple good days of not smoking under my belt, my energy and my mental well-being started to return to me. So I was like, oh, I can go to the gym, you know, I can meal prep. And you start to notice, you know, you start stacking up these little victories in order to start accumulating a couple good days, a couple good weeks, and then you know, here we are 50 days later and it's been a good month, or almost two months now.

Speaker 1: 5:44

I'd like to say so, for you know, if you're trying to get rid of a bad habit like smoking definitely with the oral fixation, maybe you're trying to cut down on screen time for your phone, you're trying to cut down on sweets, there's, I think, just sitting with yourself and trying to find what you really want to do when you're spending your time, like your free time. Not everybody needs a side hustle. You don't always need to be focused on making money or some grandiose scheme or whatever. If you're honestly trying to focus on your health, just come up with like a plan, like a few good things that you can do in order to combat, as my buddies would say, the lower self. You know, having a conversation with the dichotomy within yourself. It's like, yeah, we can do these impulsive, pleasurable things that we are addicted to, or we can start to do the healthier options, which is going to suck at first, but, like I said, don't cut out all the fun. Find some hobbies, maybe some television, Find some things to occupy your time with in order to get rid of the ones you really want to get rid of first and then focus on those other habits later. But if there's one bad habit that's nagging you, you should be relentless in trying to figure out how to get rid of it. So that would be my advice on that.

Speaker 1: 7:32

You know I still play a lot of video games at this point, but you know what are you going to do. I'm actually getting close to being back in the best shape of my life, so that's a good thing. Even with all the video games I've been playing seldom writing, seldom working on the podcast, like a lot of really bad things came from my bad habits that accrued over these 14 weeks, but the amount of work that I put in the last 50 days without smoking have really started to blossom. I'd like to say, in terms of definitely my physical wellness, what I've been eating the last like two to three weeks, and how often I've been staying active and working out and even just going on walks, listening to music, reading a little bit too, like a lot of healthier options have been coming around more often because I've been very persistent with giving them a shot, even if from the start you know it doesn't seem so enticing.

Speaker 1: 8:29

But you had to also understand like the really healthy things that you could be doing aren't going to really hit that dopamine threshold, that the really nasty addictions and pleasurable things that you have are. So you have to keep that in mind. It's like you know you could order some really shitty takeout food or you can eat a healthier option. You know you're not going to, you're not going to feel that that food gasm from eating really healthy food. Maybe some people do, you know, but usually we we feel a lot better for convenience sake, eating things that taste better but also that are prepared for us. So we don't have to work, you know. So try and try and understand that. You know life's life's not always going to be a dopamine roller coaster. You know Sometimes you get. I had to take a step back and realize that you know. But the, the addict in me, is definitely an adrenaline junkie, as many of you know, and if you do know other addicts in your life, you could definitely sense that as well. Who doesn't love a good roller coaster, though? I'm saying yeah, so talks a little bit about that.

Speaker 1: 9:43

The other thing that I'd like to mention just a quick recap on why I even started smoking in the first place. But we had lost our cat Lou in August, which was pretty much 12 months after I had to put my childhood cat down, which was one of the reasons why I started smoking in the first place last August. For those of you that didn't know, we definitely went through the ringer with our last cat Lou. He had a lot of health problems and we did everything we could to save his little life and unfortunately it just got too expensive. Sometimes you gotta take a step back and be like how selfish am I gonna be? Am I gonna keep putting money into him and keeping him alive? Is that really a quality of life? He's only one year old From the treatment from FIP or the actual FIP itself, we don't know, but it did a number on his nervous system to the point where we're not gods, we're just humans.

Speaker 1: 11:05

So medical science has only progressed to a certain point. We couldn't fix him completely, but it definitely racked me. I'll tell you what we put everything we had into that cat, so it was really tough saying goodbye to him. Also, the first thing that Lisa and I loved together took care of. So it was pretty fucked up. I'll tell you that it's still fucked up to think about.

Speaker 1: 11:37

But I've learned that I don't always have to be so ashamed of how passionately I love. You know, I even like to be ashamed of how passionately I hate, because being angry and filled with violence and fear towards the moment isn't always the best thing, but just like the adrenaline junkie I am, everything's always extreme. So I'm trying not to look at the love that we had for this cat in a negative light, you know, trying to look back. As you know, it was a good time. You know. Love the little fucker, still love the little fucker. Love my last cat too. Pretty much love all the pets I've had, you know. And we did get a new cat. Her name is Moia. She's a little older, she's about two. We adopted her from Humane Society, so she's definitely warmed up to Lisa and I as a part of the family. So that's always exciting, yeah, it's, I think, always gonna have some sort of pet to brighten your day when you come home. So that's definitely been helping as well.

Speaker 1: 12:52

I think I actually did a couple notes down here. Let's see, I got a posted note right here. I wrote down some things I was supposed to talk about on this little solo episode Pardon me, I'm drinking coffee like in my uh, my little logo, yeah, my little logo. So it's crazy. Actually talked about Lou smoking, the bad habits that came from that video game plane. Not writing. That was a really tough because of the smoking in the bad habits that had transpired.

Speaker 1: 13:30

And it was tough for me to write during those pits of despair, because I have written so much about that sadness and that type of come up that it's almost become boring to me to be writing about that. For for the reason like I started writing, like when I was like 13, 13 years old, started writing and you know, during high school and college addiction, you know very Dealing with depression, insomnia and other other things of that nature I'd always generally been writing about depressing Themes and ideas. So with this sobriety I you know I was reaching this point where I was writing extremely positive things. The entire book parables obviously wasn't a hundred percent positive, but it was definitely one of the more positive things I'd put together. So I was coming around to finally being able to Talk about this positivity and articulate it, these triumphs that I've been going through, so dealing with the smoking and the other bad habits I Just didn't really want to write about how sad I was in the moment, though. So now that I'm out of it, which has been the, the inspiration I've had for the next book that I've been working on the last couple of months so now I have the, now I have the ammo to write that you know the dust has settled a little bit.

Speaker 1: 15:08

You know, in the pits of some of our emotions, sometimes the passion is too much to handle, so I didn't want to like force myself to write. If you know you never want to like force yourself to do anything really Hobby-wise, creative-wise, health-wise, like you have to generally like Intently want to do something, can't, can't be forcing yourself to do it. It's, it's not gonna work like that, and that's not how you should go live in life. I mean, like you shouldn't even have to like force yourself to go to work, but at a certain point you need to. You know, pay the bills, survive. You know, get food, shelter, all these other you know hierarchy of needs and shit like that. So sometimes you do have to force yourself to do some shit you don't want to do in terms of your hobbies and your wellness and other things.

Speaker 1: 16:05

You know, I think my buddy Brandon said mission statement a few times when he was in in town and that mission statement Is something that can definitely resonate with me. I need to go back and do that but also Kind of change the mission statement for Every facet of my life, not just the, the podcast and not just the books, but a mission statement for almost every Parameter. You know. You know why do you want to be in better shape physically? Why do you want to have a better grasp of your mental health? Why do you Want to understand your emotions? Why do you want to become more financially independent or financially educated, like what is your?

Speaker 1: 16:55

Your mission statement on each of those should also it should be a vague understand what is the mission statement for the whole damn thing together? You know, and it's I think it's just to live a healthy, happy life and I will say you don't need to chase happiness. I understand a lot when people say don't chase happiness and I do agree with them, but I guess when I say a happy, healthy life, it's, it's, it's. I guess grateful would be a better word to describe the the perfect combination of healthy and happy. So that mission statement, that purpose is to live a live, a grateful, live, a grateful life, kind of simplify it there.

Speaker 1: 17:48

You know, shit, damn, I just realized I had the fucking lights turned on here and I have this stupid fucking light on, so this probably doesn't even look that good. I mean, hopefully it's still in 4k, but this light's supposed to be off. You know, I'm just gonna change that. So fucking sit tight. Alright, just hold that. Okay, wait, I guess that's a little better. Is that a little better? I don't know. I'm gonna ask my video guy if that's a little better. It's probably. It's probably better. So Shit, I feel like I was supposed to talk about some other shit.

Speaker 1: 18:32

One more thing I'd like to mention is my friends about the smoking thing. My friends had said I was smoking on our, our camping trip back in September. I was smoking cigars back then and you know, I was kind of down about it, but you can definitely read it on my face when I'm doing something that I'm ashamed of, I just wear it all over my face and they said seeing me smoke or let loose like this is it? They're glad to see it, almost because it makes them feel better about their mistakes, and I'm like, yeah, I guess. Like I guess I'm thinking more individualistically, though like I wish more people would call me out of my bullshit, because we get really good at not calling ourselves out on our bullshit. I understand where they're coming from, though, too, and I've had other people kind of say that in a different way before. So, yeah, I'm glad I'm out of it, though, and I'm sorry I can't make the people around me feel better about their mistakes. You know, if you need to reach out to me about something like that, that's different too.

Speaker 1: 19:59

My thing is, I think I had someone close to me reach out to me talking about sobriety, and I just wanted to give them a little guidance, and they confided in me with a few things about alcohol, and they're slowly getting closer to giving it up completely, which is fantastic. You know, I'm pretty biased about the sober lifestyle for people that know they have a problem and I know a lot of people who don't have an issue drinking, who can have a couple drinks even like two drinks a month and be totally fine, which has not. It's never made any sense to me, but I can never see myself doing something like that. But for the people who do know that they have a problem, it's nice to hear from them confide in me, because, shit, I feel like I got like a little bit of knowledge about why it's good to get rid of things like that. You know your bad habits vice's, alcohol especially so yeah, it was nice having that interaction with somebody. It kind of made me feel good.

Speaker 1: 21:14

You know, I don't really want to be a life coach, but if people really want to ask me about some shit like that, you know, dm me, I guess hit me up. If you know me, you have my phone number, so don't hesitate to call or text. If you don't hit up my DM, I'm not charging anybody right now, but if you take up too much of my fucking time, I might. I might probably will, though, so that's funny. Yeah, I got too much fucking going on.

Speaker 1: 21:48

You know I keep making these lists of all these things I gotta do. I gotta want to learn, want to keep learning guitar, want to keep learning Japanese, want to write more books, want to make the podcast better, want to buy a house, want to save more money, want to invest more, you know. Want to get in the best shape of my life, want to consistently train so I can dunk a basketball better, want to do this, want to do that? Yeah, so, fucking, the list just keeps getting longer and more ridiculous all the fucking time, and it's actually overwhelming. So, trying to cut down on a couple things, I wonder if anyone's still listening at this point. You know, if you're still listening, I appreciate it. If you're not, yeah, fucking right, dude. So yeah, really appreciate everyone's sticking around for this little bonus episode.

Speaker 1: 22:55

I think we're putting this on YouTube, so if you like the content, I can plan this a little better. So what I was going to be doing is I was going to have actual episodes every other week with a guest that's planned out, some good shit like that, and then on the other weeks, alternating, I was going to do a little bit of a like a vlog episode or something like this. I don't know what you think about that. I might just do it anyway. And yeah, I might just do it anyway. You know it'll be a lot more planned out in the future, though have some things to talk about, actual outline stuff like that. If you do have some ideas or some topics that you would like me to talk about or some questions that you would like me to try and answer honestly, like shoot a DM, shit like that. So yep, eat everything y'all. Have a good rest of your day and stay up, feel free.