Ever catch yourself thinking, “Am I happy, or am I just riding the emotional rollercoaster of everyone around me?” This week, Melody and Curt get brutally honest about the messiness of happiness.. how much of it we actually control, how much is tied up in our relationships (and our businesses), and whether you can ever really keep your emotions in your own sandbox.

Melody & Curt Talk About:

1. Why Melody’s version of “content” is surviving New England winter, missing her dog, and baby therapy air fresheners
2. Curt’s Viktor Frankl reference and the impossible standard of not letting anyone affect you—and why he’s nowhere close to that
3. The story about Melody putting her dog to sleep two days before Christmas (bring tissues, not solutions)
4. Curt’s pancake analogy: feeling both rage and joy about his daughter’s wedding, and why happiness can come from the same thing that makes you miserable
5. The “box-holding” framework—aka, when you accidentally end up emotionally carrying everyone else’s stuff (and how that plays out at home and in business)
6. How business decisions, delayed pivots, and letting things linger can keep you in “cat poop side” of the sandbox way too long
7. Why happy isn’t a permanent state, contentment isn’t complacency, and sometimes you just need someone to tell you your perception is dead wrong (hi, Brittany!)
8. The Mountain Biking/Yoga/Weightlifting coping mechanisms, and what actually works to get out of your head

Key Takeaways:

1. Nobody is completely immune to the emotions of people they love—trying to be might just make you feel worse.
2. Contentment isn’t laziness; it’s being okay with yourself and your life—even when it’s messy or in-progress.
3. You can’t always “think” your way out of unhappiness, but you can pay attention to where you’re spending your emotional energy (hint: not all of it belongs to you).
4. Sometimes, the bravest move is naming your overwhelm (and letting someone else hold your box… at least for a while).

Timestamps: 0:00 – “Are you happy?” and Melody’s tiers of existence

5:22 – Grief, joy, winter, and the myth of perpetual happiness

16:21 – Business overwhelm and box-holding dynamics

34:02 – Sacrifice, spirituality, and not becoming a martyr

53:05 – Why you can’t live in other people’s feelings forever

01:01:09 – The happiness/contentment split, summarized

When I come into today and I don't feel that feeling, I'm like, am I even content or happy? If I don't feel that, that is what happy means to me now, is if I felt it to that level, that's the feeling of happy. And content to me is just like, I am okay with being alive today. I am doing well. I'm grateful for my life. I have everything I need. But it's not. Doesn't feel like complacency necessarily. To me, complacency is complacency.

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor podcast. I'm Curt Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Hi, Melody. How are you today?

Good. How are you, Curt?

I'm doing good.

That's it?

Yes. Because actually, it's the reason we're meeting today, isn't it? I have a lot of different things pulling on me and lots of different areas of my life and with lots of different intention. So it's hard to understand my feelings right now. And I can't wait to go into today's therapy session with you and discuss things I'm going through. And I think you've already talked about some things that you're going through. So, yeah, I'd like to talk with our listeners a little bit about the idea of allowing your happiness to be controlled or in the hands of many other people, even though sometimes it's not people necessarily.

I think about this a lot because the very disciplined therapists would be like, you can't let other people control your happiness. But we have emotions as humans, and how do we not let somebody affect our happiness or affect how we're feeling, especially if we care about them? I would love to talk about that part of all of this, of, is it wrong for us to be affected by the people that we love around us?

Yeah. So I want to start by talking about just who's good at this, right? Man's search for meaning. Viktor Frankl was in the Holocaust as a Jewish prisoner. And if you read his book, he transcends what happens to him. People, situations, circumstances. All of those things affected him but did not keep him from happiness. And that is the pedestal that every therapist would try to get you to. But I want to talk real today because I'm not Victor Frank.

I have not arrived.

He is an exceptional person. And also, a book is like a moment in time. I mean, I'm sure he was happy forever.

He didn't start out that way. He didn't. It took the concentration camp of him sort of coming to and realizing a way of being. And there's a lot of comments and almost journal entries essentially, that sort of outline his experiences, both being moved around and also being in place, and then confrontations that he went through and just pain and suffering. But his take on it, maybe just recommend any, if I haven't already just done that. Anyone reading Man's Search for Meaning, it's truly an inspiring book. And while it is a snapshot in time of somebody, at least their recollections of how they see it through those eyes. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence out there of people who knew him in the concentration camps.

But, yeah, no one's gonna be writing a book about me that I've transcended my circumstances. And so when you ask me how you're doing, I know that as an American, socially aware person, I know the right answer. I'm doing great.

Good. Yeah, great.

How are you doing? Business is great. Everything's great.

Everything's great.

But let me ask you this, Melody. This is something I used to do, and I mentioned this in a previous podcast. It's something I used to do all the time, and I like it. But, Melody, are you happy?

I don't know.

Well, how's that for turning around on me?

I'm the exact right person to ask that question to, but I will say I don't know, and then I'll overthink it. Matt asked me. He gets really annoyed with me when he. What does he ask me? It's like the most basic question. Do you want this? What do you feel about this? I'm like, I don't know. He's like, so you just don't know? And I'm like, I really don't know. Probably being disconnected to knowing because I know what euphoria is and I know what depression feels like. In between is the, I don't know, land for me.

Well, I know how to fix this. Going to give you the recipe. Yeah, so. Hey, Rachel, this is my wife. Where do you want to go for dinner on our date tonight? Oh, I don't know.

Okay, well, cool.

I was thinking about this Mexican restaurant. No, not Mexican food. Oh, so you do know that. You do know we're not doing Mexican. Well, there's this Italian place I've been wanting to drink. Oh, no, no, Definitely not that one. Oh, okay. Is it the Italian of it? Or is it just the fact that it's not the kind of restaurant you want to go? You know what? I'd love to go.

You know, whatever. And they're like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. All right, cool. So getting clear on what you don't want sometimes can make it really clear.

That's the only way for me. I know what I don't want. And it does help to clarify what I do want. Even when a business. I was giving a workshop yesterday, and I talked about how when you're starting to, like, write out a project plan or something or you need to write instructions, it is very hard to start with a blank sheet of paper. But if you see something that somebody's already started, I can see every hole, every problem in that. You'll see all the things, and your brain starts to click in, and then suddenly you're prolific.

And what if I said this? What's making you unhappy right now?

Well, my dog not being here anymore is. I mean, we did talk about this a couple of episodes ago before, and I knew that we were gonna have to put him to sleep. And truly, just like, he was an angel on earth. He was an angel. As he died, like, we were all surrounding him. He took his last breath in our arms, and it was nothing like he had Oreos before he died, though, and that was good. He laid in his spot. And it has been really traumatic and difficult.

And every day I walk in the house, and there's this instant of Sean, like, already annoyed that he's about to greet me at the door the way he did. And then I'm like, oh, I miss him so much. And we're all struggling with it, and it's been two weeks now, and I feel like it's getting harder because it was two days before Christmas that we had to do this.

Is his bed still out?

His bed was our home, like, anywhere he wanted to be.

He didn't have, like, a bed cushion or something.

Max, my son, he was the bed. Like, they used to sleep together every night before he got sick. And then he would sleep in our room, and he just got to go where he wanted to, but his bowls are still there. We haven't really done anything with any of his stuff. It's just hard. And so there's that kind of underlying part of it. And also, it was. You know, we're in the New year now, and I was supposed to have my quarterly midlife crisis that week between Christmas and New Year's.

The. The last one of the year, you know, but Then it didn't happen. And it was so disappointing after all that talk. But it happened a little bit last week and then I was like, ugh. I knew I couldn't escape it and it was like a very mini thing.

Well, then, happy birthday. That was my present to you.

Oh, thank you. That was great.

A little tiny midlife crisis.

Also, I'm in New England, so it's winter and it's been wintering hard since like Thanksgiving. It's a weird winter. It's been cold forever. There's a lot of, like, stuff here that makes it so that I know that I don't know if I'm not unhappy, but it's not easy to find happy right now. And what does happy even mean, Curt? What is the definition of that?

Let me just ask you the next question. Right behind us, Sean's gone and set in winter in New England. So that's like one side of the coin. Let's just flip the coin over. Like, what are you happy about right now? And that'll define what happiness is right now, as you think about that.

Oh, I'll show you what I'm happy about if I can get it for you. Hold on. I am happy about my baby therapy. Do you see this?

Oh, my gosh. You have in front of you. It looks like a cutout picture.

A air freshener.

Oh, it's an air freshener.

I ordered them for Christmas for the parents because I thought it was hilarious. And they came with a lot. And I was like, I'm getting an air freshener of the baby.

And what does this air freshener smell like?

Not like baby. It's like a lemony. It's a nice smell. I won't say that it's bad because.

There is like the baby powder smell or the baby shampoo smell. They totally could have done that.

Well, they didn't know that it was going to be for a baby. They. They'll do it for your head. I know what I'm getting you for birthday. For all of your family to have your head in their car.

And I want it to smell like tar. Just kidding. That's the worst I could think of.

Pine tar is not a men's.

Oh, pine tar is not tar. But yes, yes, pine tar is much better.

You know what I did for my birthday is I forced my brother and sister in law to allow me to sleep over their house and take over the baby all night. Who doesn't sleep still so that they could have a good night of rest. And then maybe they have guilt That I am there a lot or help out or whatever. Especially my sister in law because she's a saint and she just wants to be like, no, I don't want to put you out. So I was like, it's my birthday, you have to. And she had the best night of sleep of her life. That made me happy. And I got to wake up with that beautiful boy and hang out with him.

How many times did you have to get up in the night?

Like three.

Just need to eat or change or.

He just likes to hang out in the middle of the night.

Wow.

Well, I mean, sometimes eating.

My respect for this baby is going downhill.

Yeah, I know.

If you want to wake up in the middle of the night and hang out. Like we can't not be friends. Like, I have very specific goals in the night.

To sleep. Yeah.

Not hang out.

That's been really the best part of my life right now, I think is. I hope my family doesn't listen to this, but they know that. They know that.

It sounds like I asked you what's making you happy. That sounds like borderline joy to me.

It is joy. I don't know what it is about this baby therapy. Because he's a joy. Maybe I'd feel different if he was colicky or something. Probably not.

I think that baby could become a bank robber and you'd be totally stoked.

Maybe. I'm not sure. It's just. Just a moment in my life where I have the time. I make the time. That is something that happy that I can do.

Wait, wait, What?

Well, he's 16, so he's teaching me how to.

Oh. Because he knows it all. He does.

Yeah.

I have an 18 year old like that.

But that's been fun. Cause I realized, oh, he has to talk to me like he can't put on his headphones in the car. He can't play on his phone because he has to drive. And it's like the best of both worlds. So that makes me happy.

Getting killed on the road does not make me happy. And that's either you're glossing over something or he's a much better driver.

Oh, he's a great driver. Yeah.

My 18 year old is not afraid of anything. He can make it all work. But my gosh, driving with him is terrifying.

I get that. My daughter and I, when she was learning to drive, I was making her learn stick. Cause I'm like, you're gonna have to know this someday probably. And it was a battle every day. There were tears, there were screaming matches. I Once kicked her out of the car. And then she got it one day and she's like, oh, this is so easy and fun. And fun, right? Yeah.

Driving stick is so fun.

It was really such an experience I will never forget. But it's different with my other kid because he's not my mini twin, you know? Wait, was the question what makes you unhappy or happy?

Yeah, right now. What's making me unhappy? One of the things that's making me unhappy is the same thing that's making me really happy. I don't want to bury the lead here. My daughter's getting married this weekend and I am filled with rage and joy. Like, I'm just so happy for her. She done so much to just put herself in a position to win. She's chosen an amazing companion. How dare her leave me? How dare her leave her dad for another man.

And I found out what song she's playing at the reception. There's a daddy daughter dance and it's a country song. She played it for me. I don't know, like, it's basically like I loved her first, so. And I'm like bawling. She's like playing it for me and I'm listening to this. I'm just like ugly crying. I'm not going to cry for you guys because I'm going to be so strong.

But seriously, I am both elated for her. Like, she bought a house.

Amazing.

Only her name on the title. She is so capable.

Wow.

She's got this right? And in today's economy, by the way, buying a house, like, What?

That's amazing.

23 year old girl, little baby girl, right? What's she doing buying a house? Right? Why is my house not good enough for her? Why does she want to cut me off like this?

How dare she?

But also the guy she chose is like awesome. So anyway, that was a pancake. You know, you can flip both sides there. But yeah, other than that, I've got some major challenges at work right now. Just major, major challenges that I feel. I'm just gonna be really honest with you. I feel victimized in a lot of ways and I've spent my whole life trying to not be the victim. And right now I'm just like, I'm not letting it sulk, like sit.

I'm just throwing it out there to let you know, like, this is something that like I'm in the process of overcoming. Look who's going to the company. Who has the ability to fire or change relationships or whatever? I do, right? So I'm not the victim. I'm the victim of some of my past decisions. But, like, honestly, I did the best I could. I made the best choices I could at the time. I'm not even sure that there's a lesson in here for me to, like, change the original lesson, but there is. Or the original decision.

But I think there is a lesson in, like, how quickly I could have maybe pivoted.

Do you wait too long to pivot? Like, I wait too long to pivot, yeah.

Because you and I both have the same disease. Like, we believe that if you love someone harder or. And I say someone, whether that's a company you're working with or just trust the process more. Like, look, I'll be. Get taken care of here. I got my heart in the right place. But anyway, what's making me unhappy right now is that I've allowed sort of small decisions and little indiscretions run into something that's, like, now causing me to lose sleep at night. And I'm.

I feel bad even, maybe, like, since there's only two people listening right now, like, I'll just go ahead and say Melody and Garrett. I'm actually a little bit ashamed. I'm ashamed of myself for some of the things that I've allowed. Just not negligence. Negligence is definitely not the right word. And not apathy either, by the way.

But not courage. Not courage.

Yeah, not courage.

Same. I totally forgot. Curt. I'm not to take away from this, but this will come back to it is. I did soft launch the Melody Manager brand last week.

Talk about bearing a lead.

Well, I forgot because I just was like, I don't even know why I did it, but I was just like, I'm just gonna do it one day. I was maybe sick of the two, three years of waiting that I've done. And I think also there might have been a little thing that pushed me towards it. Oh. It was my marketing agency being like, well, you don't have to wait till you have all the stuff together. Just launch it on, like, a Facebook page. And I was like, wait, I can do that? Yeah. And so I did.

And I've been doing daily lives for three days in a row now. I'm going to do it all of January.

That's how you know you got to have it.

Yeah. Right. I've done these before where I've done, like, 30 days in a row and that luckily it's not going to happen till 30 days, but it gets hard. But I'm making sure to talk about melody manager only 10 minutes a day and talk about what I'm trying to do, the common things that people have. However. So I was very. And I am very, very excited. I feel like such freedom and release from that.

Today I am feeling a very big lack of energy because I'm coming to the realization that there's a lot of things in my company that I need to deal with and continue to help fix. And I'm trying to think, do I need to. Is it that I'm thinking I need to, or do I actually need to? Because there is a difference. Like, there's some things that I probably need to be involved with, but if I got sick today, I could take, you know, a month off and everything would still run. So what am I trying to do? Because I keep trying to do something that's not actually getting me to the place I want to be, which is I want to be just focused on growing the vision of Melody Manager. That's my passion. Maybe that's the. Not unhappiness necessarily, but I'm not feeling great today, feeling overwhelmed.

That's why that question's kind of a weird loaded question. Are you happy?

Yeah. Happy is a moment.

I feel like happy to me is like. It makes me think about, like, am I spending my time on the right side of the sandbox and because the cat poops over here and I, for some reason, like to keep playing over in the poop.

Well, because you have feelings. Like we are emotive humans. I think of contentment more than happiness. I learned it from somewhere where happy is like a state. Right. And it's like, not something that's maintainable. And contentment, I think, is more maintainable.

Yeah. And actually, you know, going back to Victor Frankl, I think that where he would turn contentment into meaning. That's interesting. Contentment, slash, meaning is like, I mean something. I'm not worthless. You think about the Melody Manager get you pumped up when you start thinking about all the things that you gotta do in order to put that on the forefront. It's just more comfortable to not have as much meaning. And therefore, I'll just be.

Maybe I'm more content having less meaning because it's just less work and I can cruise more.

Yeah. Well, I'm also sometimes, like yesterday I was going to the gym momentarily and.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You went to the gym in January.

I went to the gym in November. I've been going since November.

But you can't go to the gym in January.

You can if you started in November. That's why I started in November.

Was there any machines available for you?

There were some, yeah.

Oh, okay. Okay, go on.

But I didn't stay long, just to be clear. I got in there, there was more people there than I've been used to, and I barely like it to begin with. So I was like, I am out of here. Yeah.

January is for push ups and pull ups and sit ups.

Well, my husband has me and. And he helped me set up my routine on an app that. It's called, like, weightlifting or Apple. And I'm like, why do you use this one? He's like, well, it's just simple, and I know how it works. So it's like, very much a man app.

And no flowers?

No flowers. But I accident acc. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I accidentally deleted all of my data from the. All of those times and all of my workouts. And so he was nice enough to put it back in. But when I was at the gym, I realized that, and I couldn't think of any exercises that I knew how to do, which I do if it's written down on a list. But as soon as there's no list, I could think of two things.

And I was like, yeah, I can't handle the stress of this. It reminded me of. You're killing me.

You're like, Russian twists.

Yeah, right, Exactly, Rose. It was pretty bad. So I just said, matt, I'll just go with him when he goes. Point being in November. I started thinking about this because I knew I wouldn't go in January because I can't be one of those people. Right. I can be a November person, though.

Oh, good. So you went November and December. You keep not talking about December. Okay, good. You pushed all the way through. You're like, you've created a habit.

It's not a habit because every day I fight and I fight hard. I don't like it, but I feel great afterwards. And I know I do.

I have a buddy. So when I was getting into mountain biking training, initially really hard, it became apparent you have to do weightlifting if you're gonna get faster. If you wanna be a better cyclist, you have to lift weights. Well, I hate lifting weights. I hate everything about it.

Really? Yeah.

Hate it. Absolutely hate it.

Oh, I like it.

I like looking in the mirror afterward. I have a big old pumped up chest and bicep, and I like taking off my shirt in front of my wife, of course. So here's my solution to it. This guy's like, you gotta do this crazy workout. You Know, he's giving me all the workouts, and, like, man, the whole time doing the workout, I'm just waiting for it to be over. And I'm going hard. I'm going hard, but, like, I'm not looking forward to it. And while I'm doing it, I'm just looking forward to being done.

But what I got to the point of is I like doing it at home, number one, so I don't have to, like, I can just do whatever I want, whenever I want. No one's looking at me.

Do you, though?

Yeah, I do. Yeah.

Oh, that's great.

What I look forward to is as soon as I'm done, I try to time it so that Rachel will be, you know, in the kitchen, and I'll take my shirt off because it's just soaked in sweat, right? Yeah. I don't want to keep wearing that. So I'll throw that in the dirty clothes and the laundry on the way in the door from the garage.

Is this still pg, by the way?

It's all in. No, I'm just kidding.

Yeah.

And I just walk in, and I just wait for her to do those eyes. And when she does that face, then I was like, I'm gonna do it again tomorrow.

That's smart. I don't have the same reaction to my husband's. He's very sweaty and. But he has worked on his delts, his tries, his buys. Like, he's doing good.

So he's looking tight.

Yes, he's doing it. Matt, you're doing a great job. That's what he needs to do.

Well, he probably finds motivation and joy in the actual process, so maybe it's not as necessary for him. But I will tell you, there is nothing. For me. I was going to say for men, but I'll just say for me, there's nothing like the one woman that really matters looking at you and going, you look like a piece of meat.

And like, oh, you know what I say to him is, you're getting too many muscles here. Can you stop doing that? Because the pillow that I like to lay on no longer is comfy.

Well, if that worked for Matt, that would not work for me.

It doesn't work for him.

I like it when she makes it seem. Oh, okay, that's not. I like it when I can tell I'm awakening something inside of her. So that's motivation enough.

Very nice. I like it.

And you know what? For all you guys know watching, I may not built like some sort of, like, Greek God by any means, but I'M her Greek God. She probably feels like it's necessary. Like, you look like a seven out of ten, baby. You know? Or like a four out of ten. But you're my four out of ten. Wow.

I just. Someday I want to just clip every single time you've talked about Rachel and sent it to her.

Oh, gosh, she would murder. You're the hottest two out of ten I ever saw, baby.

See, this is making me feel happy, but it's for a moment in our day, right?

So can I just take that right there and just sort of. That's something that's been on my heart a lot lately. You know, we started this podcast because there's certainly been a spiritual revival inside of me as I've been searching more for God and my relationship with him and understanding more about what I think he expects of me and what I enjoy about being in a relationship with him and all that. And that's definitely a driving force for sure, still. But one of the things that I've been paying more attention to is some people believe in God because they're afraid of if they didn't, right? So, like, if I don't show God that I am doing everything, like, I'm just disposable to him, like, I'm only as good as that. And I think that there's for my relationship with Rachel. Like, I want to please her, I do. Like, I'm not afraid of what would happen if I didn't.

But I think that's a nice, healthy relationship for me, and I like the motivations for that. But I've also noticed that just in myself and, you know, outside of God, just, like, inside the body that I believe God created for me and the spirit that's housed inside that body, like, why do I surrender so much of my happiness to my circumstances or the people about me? And that's something I feel like I could talk about a lot. I don't want to, like, go too off the rails here and get too weird. But maybe the overriding. Like, if I was writing a title to the book, it would say something to the effect of I want to be happy. Colon. I don't want to give my happiness to other people, Dash. But other people are a big part of my happiness.

Comma. What am I supposed to do?

I'm so similar. I think about if one of my kids is unhappy, I'm unhappy. If my husband's unhappy, I'm unhappy. If the world is unhappy. Like, I am so affected by everybody and everything around me.

Do you See the danger in that? Like, do you see how dangerous.

Of course I do you think I want this? Do you think I want this?

That's what I'm. And I know you're getting ready to say one more thing, but, like, that's sort of the point of getting at is that, like, if 400 people are in my life, the likelihood that one of those people's unhappiness is going to cause me to be unhappy. I am guaranteed to always be unhappy. Okay, so I know I cut you off. You're getting ready to finish a sentence.

I'm sorry. You ruined it now, I guess. And that makes me unhappy.

Now I can.

Now you can't be happy.

Now our listeners can't be happy because, Garrett, you can't be happy.

Okay, listen, I often overthink this because I'm like, should I be this affected? But when I'm not, when I really work hard to not be affected, I feel like an uncaring, bad person. Have you ever been able to be unaffected by somebody around you or have made a choice to be unaffected?

As a man? I don't know that a woman can for sure, but I know I've been able to do it. In retrospect, it can sometimes bring its own guilt, but it can be quite freeing. And the method I typically will use is I go get on my mountain bike. See, the thing about road biking is that you can have a lot of thoughts and you can think about a lot of things, and I do enjoy that part of road biking. Get your mind clear. But unfortunately, it allows you to think so much. Where mountain biking is really powerful is that it's constantly this rock, that rock, this jump, this drop, this corner. And so what happens is, is you can put your mind into this completely other state where you're feeling really happy.

And you're in the moment, like, because you have to focus on the moment. Yeah. And that is not. Like, I don't think people are. Do that same thing for us. Like, I'm not in the moment. I don't spend a lot of time in the moment. It is hard for us.

And that's why you mountain bike, Curt. Because it helps you to feel in the moment. Or, like, if I do yoga in a class only because otherwise I will do yoga for a very short amount of time. But when I'm in a class, I can get my mind to be, like, there in a moment. I've trained it to be in that moment well.

And by changing poses all the time and managing your balance and everything it has a lot of built in like protections.

Yeah. Like I've said before, it's both like great for people with ADHD because you're doing movement, it's what multitasking, you're moving your body, you're exercising, you're doing mindset stuff, like meditation stuff, and you get to multitask all at the same time.

Meditation of itself is a very like. I genuinely believe that the more I meditate, the weaker my mind gets as far as staying clear. I used to be like when I first started I could do it for periods of time and like now I'm just constantly catching myself wandering. I've now sort of started building back up to it. But there's lots of different ways of meditating. There's keep your mind clear, but there's also thinking on a specific subject, but keeping yourself on that subject in a helpful, clear way. And what's interesting about meditation is that like your brain muscle, like it needs training.

You need a lot of discipline to meditate in the traditional way because I have done the same and my mind constantly wanders. But I once did the Bikram 30 Day Challenge, which is like the hottest of hot yoga, the cult yoga. I go all in when I do it and I learned they only do like a set amount of poses, the same poses every time you do two sets. It's like 120 degrees in there and it's a 90 minute class and you're staring at yourself in the mirror and your form has to be a certain way. But when I did it over and over and over again, I loved that it was like the same set of. I know it seems like I wouldn't. My body just automatically learned what position to get in, like. Cause I heard it so many times where you had to twist your body.

And now when I do yoga, I automatically still am able to go and just my body knows what to do. And then my mind also knows what to do too. So it's almost like I get into a meditative state that I normally wouldn't be able to get into. But I can't do it at my home because there's nothing meditative about my home for me.

Interesting. Well, I'd like to just talk for a moment about surrendering our happiness to other people. It's only reasonable to say that if it's a cloudy, dreary, rainy day, like I think that it's normal and human for it to impact you. And I think that if someone punches you in the face, it would be normal and human. To have an emotional response to that. So I don't think it's realistic. And, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, Melody, on this. I think we're kind of on the same page here, is that being reacting to your circumstances isn't necessarily a problem, But I just think that fundamentally there's gotta be something around the idea of being in charge of your own happiness or state of being, even if it means dropping in and out of it in order to allow for things to be what they are around you.

This is something where they talk about when you're a highly sensitive person, you know, like, the extreme sensitivity. And if we're born that way or if we have that inside of us, there. There are some parts of that that are good, and there are some parts of it that are bad. I feel like this is one of the parts that is not great to have where you are really in tune with other people's emotional states. At least I am. And it's so intuitive. Like, even before I can verbalize it, I just have a sense that somebody is off. And that's why I drive my husband crazy with all of my.

Are you okay? What's wrong? What's wrong? And I don't like it at all. I don't want to care. Like, if he's having a bad day, why does that have to affect me? Like, I might have been having a great day and. But it's not something I can help often, and it takes a lot of energy to stop it. Do you really believe you can develop the habit and practice of not letting anybody else affect you?

No, I believe it can be done. But I almost think that you almost have to have some sort of abnormality to be able to accomplish it. Let me draw two different things I've been taught out, and I want to hear your sort of thoughts on it. So, first of all, if you go to YouTube and you do a search for the tale of two brains, there's this guy who does this presentation about a woman's brain being a ball of wire and a man's brain being a warehouse full of boxes. And even though it's not perfectly true, I think it's true enough to draw, like, the stereotypes that are at least helpful, and that is that a woman. Everything's connected. So your husband's happiness is connected to whether you're gonna go to the grocery store later on, which is tied to whether you're gonna have enough food to make it to the weekend with the party that you're putting on, which Leads you to the. The role of who's coming and the anxiety that comes with the people who are coming that you're nervous about.

And then that leads you to, you know, whatever. And it's all emotion driving this wireless. And so, because it's all connected, you know, as a man, I think about, like, oh, my gosh, how does a woman survive? Because that's just all over. And he does a great job explaining that and then helping a woman understand that. Like, when I've got the box with car problems open and I'm looking front in that, when you come up and ask me about how are we going to get the kids to school tomorrow if the car isn't running, like, I got to put this away and talk about, like, the school box. Like, I don't. I can't do this. And I think that's hard on relationships because, like, we think different.

But in terms of what you're talking about, there's, first of all, like, this ability to, like, use this box technique to sort of, like, say, put someone else's unhappiness in a box, set it back up on the shelf, and then get another box out. And by and large, I am capable of it. In a lot of ways, it's involuntary, but there's certain, like, emotional charges that I don't feel I have. Even with all the meditating I've done, I don't feel that I can emotionally close all my boxes and just be happy all day as I think about one particular thing.

Do you want that?

I don't know. I don't know. But does lead me to my second analogy that I've been taught, and I think that this is also important. So the analogy is this is that we all have our box of, like, what's going on in our life. And maybe one way to refer to it would be a backpack of what we carry around with us. But I need to use box. Because a lot of times what'll happen is that there's people in our life that we are around who naturally, without any training whatsoever, will come bring their box over to us, and they'll say, hey, look in my box. Let me tell you about how heavy my box is.

And then you are a loving, caring person, and you're like, would you like me to help care about now? Now, some people are so entitled, or they're just trained, you know, however they are, they don't even show you what's in the box first. They just say, like, here, hold my box with me. Help me hold this Box. And we are holding this box together. And then they're like, okay, I'm gonna walk away while you hold my box. And you're like, wait, what? And I got my box. And they're like, yeah, my box is heavy. And.

And then what happens is, is that they tell their friends that you hold boxes, box holders over there. And that's problematic all by itself. But where it gets really problematic is when you're holding their box and you go, look, I can't hold your box for you right now. And, like, what? I can't do it. I got other stuff. Well, I thought, you're my friend. You know what? I'll go to someone else. But you're a terrible friend.

Like, I thought you were my friend. And you don't even love me. You never have loved me. All that time you're holding a box, it's just you pretending to. What kind of wolf in sheep's clothing are you? And that is obviously toxic. But we train people that will be a box holder. We train people that they should love us and care about us because we're their box holder or whatever it might be. So I wanted to kind of put those two examples out that there's kind of a men's, women's separation ability to separate thoughts, people, and events.

And then there's also whether it's an enneagram type thing of, like, how you were born, what you're sort of making meaning and love is to you, but we almost do it to ourselves and sabotage ourselves because we're like, look, you can count on me to keep you happy. And then, as a result, we sacrifice our own happiness on that altar. What are your thoughts?

I'm always willing to hold people's boxes. I don't want to, necessarily, because I'm not thinking of what's in the box. I'm just thinking I want to be helpful. And every box that has a cover on top, you don't know what's inside it. They all look the same. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot what's in this box. I like this box thing. But I think I welcome it sometimes not as much as I used to, because boundaries.

And really, when I say boundaries, I mean Matt makes me very cognizant of. He is the boundary, I guess when I see people suffering or I feel like they're suffering, I suffer with them in a way. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel so deeply for them that it feels like I should suffer with them in empathy. For their situation or which is not how I want to be. That doesn't sound fun at all.

Well, Jesus in the Bible talks about mourning with those who mourn on the Sermon on the Mount. He talked about the way that we love our fellow men. You know, and for those that believe in follow the Bible, we talk about there's two great commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. And every other commandment I believe is just an appendage on those two. The law, the hangs of the law. And so if you think about that, the way that you love God and the way that you love your neighbor can really be self sacrificial. Probably not for today's conversation.

But what does God want us to do? What of ourselves are we supposed to put on the altar? Did he send us here to be as self sacrificing as possible?

And then a martyr?

Well, you certainly can take a martyr approach to it. I know people who have self sacrificed in the Latter Day Saint religion, the Mormon religion. I would say that there's been a lot of improvements as I've grown. But as a kid, these very happy women who had sacrificed their entire life to just feed the organization of the church and to feed the families that they serve to do all that in the name of loving God and loving their neighbor, you know, you can read their journals and see how unhappy they really truly were. But you would never have known that on the outside. And so, you know, martyr feels more like an outward to me. It feels more like an outward, like, well, I'm doing this for you and all that. But I think in the truest sense of the word, like they killed their life in order to, as you say, you lose your life to find it.

The Bible says. But I think that can be done on several different levels. And I ask, like, what does God want for us? And like I said, this is probably another topic for another day. But just to like sort of put a pin in it, I have to decide, does God want me to go out into the world he created for me and enjoy his creation and drink it all in that I possibly can while loving God and my neighbor? Or is he expecting me to put a big box around myself and like, stay in your lane, all that goodness in the world, keep yourself from it, because this is the place where you'll be able to sacrifice yourself the best for my joy? And then if that was true, which I actually don't believe that that's true. But then the question is, what kind of God is that? Because I do think there's something to be said for sacrificing in the short term for gains, but I think there's also something to be said for. And this is the balance. I think in the end, this is sort of where I think I'm headed with this whole topic is you can sacrifice not at all, and there'll be no gain. You know, I can go out and just enjoy all the pleasures of life and be in the dead end of never getting anywhere.

But is that always true?

Well, if I went out and boy, I sure Fentanyl sure makes me feel good. And, you know, enjoying sexual relationships with every woman that I find pretty is good. And, you know, I have this tendency to want to steal every time I go into a store. Like, it just feels good to me. Like. And when I'm in a relationship, it's all about me. Narcissism feels great to me. If I don't sacrifice anything whatsoever, I think that I end up basically.

You know, you talked like the rock stars of the world where the world revolved around. They tell you at the end, like, it wasn't good that everything revolved around me. It was all about me. So, yeah, I do believe that there is some sort of sacrifice that's important. But I do think that on that continuum, you can go to the other extreme where you sacrifice to the point where it's not about you at all. And then what have you learned? You've learned that you can hide your resentments. You've learned that as long as you're caring about other people, you're worthy of love, but you can't be worthy of love all on your own. Or that maybe you can please this group of people and those people can view you as a good and saintly and wonderful person.

But as a result, these other people are going to hate you. And that's fine. And you can never give up this game. You have to play this game forever and ever in order for this group of people. Because if you mess up at the end of that game, they'll all turn on you that you weren't measuring up to their standard. And that's what I believe. You can take sacrifice too far because you're not enough on your own. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that if you believe that the only way God can love you is if you were able to go out and prove it every day, well, that tells me that God doesn't love you as his creation.

He loves you as his pet or as, like, a tool. Like, you know, I Mean, like a plaything instrument. Yeah. And I think that there is some beauty in God saying, you know why you're worthy of love is because you're mine. And when you make a mistake and things are really hard and maybe you made a big mistake and you're really hurting and you feel shame about it, I want to love you and help you. I still love you and care about you. That didn't affect my love for you. But you are learning a lesson now, and I love you so much.

I'm going to let you learn that lesson. So there's a lot of layers to it. So anyway, that's a long detour I just took.

So then are you happy?

I mean, it's such a complicated thing because.

Are you feeling content?

I don't. I don't feel content. But I. I also think that there's room for the moment you become content. Aren't you worried that progress stops?

No. Like, I used to think of content as being complacent. And. Ooh, this is coming back to. Okay, one of my ketamine treatments that I did, because I remember I really linked contentment to, like, complacency and laziness, which it sounds like you might do that a little bit, too.

To me, contentment is Ferdinand the Bull out in the field, like, just looking at a flower and just done, Like, I'm. Don't change anything. I'm happy enough right here.

What if Ferdinand was meditating? Would that just be like. Is meditation, like, good? Okay, because you're doing something?

Meditation is good because I'm putting on my shoes for the day to go run as hard as I can. That's how I view. Meditation is like, clear slate, get clean, get strong.

But isn't it supposed to get you to the point of contentment? Like, isn't that the point kind of.

Well, in that sense. So, you know, I talk about Rachel all the time. Like, does everyone know that I married to a woman named Rachel that I love?

No. Wow.

Let me put that out there. If you haven't been paying attention, I married a woman that makes me very content with that choice. Where I'm at with God right now, even as I'm wrestling with him and it's hard, I'm very content. I feel so proud and happy of being his business wise. I look forward to what we're doing, and I am so content with the decisions we've made that, like, I'm happy to, like, run down that path. My children, my daughter getting married. I'm content with her choice and spouse. But I saw a burr under my saddle.

Yeah, I think about the moments when I'm truly happy. Honestly, last night I was probably ecstatic. I had so much energy. I was like doing projects and just getting back to a place of like, I don't know, I just felt a tremendous sense of inspiration because I had that class that I did. And then I just took the energy from that and rolled it right into the evening. And I just kept going and going. And I think I used up like four days worth of, you know, my manic, inspirational energy. And so when I come into today and I don't feel that feeling, I'm like, am I even content or happy? If I don't feel that that is what happy means to me now is if I felt it to that level, that's the feeling of happy.

And content to me is just like, I am okay with being alive today. I am doing well. I'm grateful for my life, I have everything I need. But it's not. Doesn't feel like complacency necessarily to me. Complacency is complacency.

And I know that at church we'll talk about the difference between joy and happiness. I think there is a distinction to be drawn there that sometimes in the moment they can feel the same, but they definitely don't. I don't think over time they translate the same. I wonder if to get back to the question of giving other people the control of your happiness, I think it's trust. I think that there needs to be a way that you can trust the person in whose hands you put your happiness. So for example, like as I've kind of been, you know, as God makes himself known to me in my own little spiritual experiences, I get the affirmation that God is pleased with the effort that I'm putting out, but he's not pleased with where I'm at in terms of the lessons I've learned yet. And he wants me to keep learning. And so that actually makes me happy that, you know, I'm loved and I have somewhere to push to.

And similarly, I think the same with Rachel. I think Rachel's like, I want you to keep growing into the person you need to be, but I love you for who you are. But as I look at some of the other areas of my life that maybe bring me a little more, I'll say discontent just for the sake of keeping the word same, those might come in areas where I don't trust as much. Trust is a two way street. So maybe I haven't put enough energy into those relationships or those relationships are fueled by the wrong inspiration. Like, I'm doing this to further a cause that, you know, maybe brings me happiness in one area that's not necessarily that critical to me, but it also could be that I've put in so much energy into this, and this other person disrespected that energy, and so the trust, you know, it doesn't come back.

Right. That can often be a thing where we put energy into people or doing things, especially in the business. I don't know about you, but I find things all the time that I put tremendous amount of energy into. And it reminds me of, like, what a waste of energy it was because I never did anything with the thing that I created. And sometimes it's because I want to be creative and I just want to build something. Sometimes somebody asked for it and they didn't use it. That was a little bit off the subject.

But what meaning do we make of this? Like, you know, normally when we get to the end of an episode, I feel like I've gotten a little extra clarity, but I still feel like I'm really stuck with. I want to control my happiness, but I feel like my happiness is so closely tied to so many different things, and maybe I need to narrow it down. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?

My thoughts are that I'm wondering if you can't control your happiness with these things because there's decisions that you have to make or. I know that when I delay decisions, I spend a lot of time in the void. And because there's things I don't want to do or there's people that I don't want to confront on things because it's uncomfortable. But it's like the longer you go not doing those things, the harder it is on you emotionally. Sometimes after that, that can be really hard too. If you finally go through with it, you don't feel good. I'm thinking of specific situations, but is there something you're putting off decision wise? Are you in a situation where you have no control?

Yeah. Part of my unhappiness comes from, like, I'm relying on other people to accomplish things that are very important to me. And I think there's a bit of discontentment that comes from me knowing that. Discontentment from the uncertainty of whether the other people in my life. And let me just take my daughter's wedding, for example. Like, she's married a really great guy. Do I know for sure enough about him to know that he will never put my daughter in harm's way. That he will provide for her enough to sustain a life that's happy.

And I say provide, you know, I know you're thinking about money, but, like, can he provide the personality? Can he provide the love and care when he gets mad? Will he always keep himself in check when they have kids? Will he be a help meet for those kids? I don't know. And I have to trust that. And that brings a little discontent. But I know she's just stayed here and didn't grow up and didn't have any happiness outside in that growth. That I could do all that for.

Her, you know, that is very silly. Also, it's. I hate that forever we will worry about our children and that we will always feel on the edge of uneasiness or uncertainty. Because I'm always waiting for something not bad to happen. I have been trained to thrive in chaos in my whole life. When things feel secure and nothing's really happening, even that time, it's hard for me to be happy. Most people will be like, this is great. Life is good.

And for me, I'm like, something isn't right here. Something's not happening. And I just can't be happy in those moments or content. That's like, probably an area of life that I need to get better at. That is an area I could probably control and be more cognizant of.

This is one of those situations where I feel like cerebrally I have the knowledge of, like, you know, it's like telling someone who's depressed, well, here's how you be less depressed, Just happy. And cerebrally, you're like, there did it. I know I solved the problem. But then there's the wisdom side of it. And it's like, I'll give you one example here. I've been talking about my daughter's wedding so much. I'll share one more kind of deep personal detail here. When her fiance came before his fiance, he wanted to ask for my blessing to marry my daughter and to ask her to marry to him.

And I knew that the question was going to come. I was prepared. I. I thought about it. And when he asked me, I said, let me tell you a story. I brought Michaela home from the hospital, and she was so small, and I was so nervous driving her home in the car. And I thought, man, one wrong move and this baby is going to be hurting. It's my fault and all that.

And so it made a lot of sense to me when people said, when a boy comes to Date your daughter. You make sure you're out there with the shotgun, cleaning it, and show them what you're going to do to him. And we all know that's a big joke because even just brandishing a firearm and someone's going to get you in jail for life. But as a concept, people kind of get that. And I got it, like, it made sense. Like, no one's hurting my daughter. And then your daughter grows up and you feel protective of her, but you also realize that, like, she's smart. And I honor that.

And I told him, I said, let me tell you something I never did. My daughter growing up, not one time until after she graduated from high school, not one time did I ever compliment her looks. Not once. I never told her she was pretty. I did not want her to find any worth in that. As pretty as she is, I didn't do it. I felt like she would never know that she was a strong, capable woman who is smart and capable of love for all sorts of other reasons, other than what makeup she was wearing or her skin texture or whatever. That was just a me thing.

And I did that. And I'll have to live with that forever. But when she was graduating, I told her that she was beautiful. That was really important to me. What I now know is this guy is coming and asking for her hand marriage. What I said was, she's perfect. She's everything. And I know that she's better with you.

She's told me so. I've seen it. But I will always be her dad. And so there's a tension. And here's the tension. I love her enough, and I love you enough because she loves you so much that I'm going to let you guys go make a life, and I'm going to stay out of your way. And I'm not going to offer advice that's not asked for. I may sometimes ask you if you want my advice, and then you are more than welcome to politely decline.

Say, I don't. Really not looking for advice right now. And I can't promise you it won't ever hurt my feelings, but I just want you to know that that is always a totally okay answer. But if I ever find out that you're hurting my little girl, and I know she's not my little girl anymore, but if I ever find out that you're doing anything to hurt her, abuse her, I, as her father, will have to step in to take the role that you're not taking, which is to protect her. Because I can't give that one up, I can give it to you. But the moment I see that you're not respecting that, like, I have to jump in. And I just need you to know that, like, that's the one thing that I will let you guys build a life together. As much as I might disagree with your decisions, my love is what's going to drive my compliance and this, like, loving you through it all and just, you know, holding you and all that.

But I just want you to know that even though I fully understand what I'm telling you right now, it's not always going to feel this way. So if you see me allowing emotion to take over, I want you to know that it's your right and your obligation to tell me to butt out.

You're too self aware.

You're just like, well, and that's what I said. I'm self aware right now, but I might not always be. And I want you to always have this and hold this, that you can call me out this. And I promise to never forget this conversation.

You gave him a gift of telling you to be quiet in the times that he wants to, essentially, unless I can't.

And that's in the situation. And I've limited that situation to where and I did extend it to the children. If you guys have children, you know, I trust you completely and implicitly that I'll never have to step in. I do. I would do everything in my power to stop this if I felt like that was a real problem. But I also have seen people change over time. And as you grow into the person you're going to be, which I think we all welcome, growing into someone new and better, just know that, like, if you ever moved the wrong direction, and you're even allowed to move the wrong direction, but if you cross the line. So anyway, this is like, it feels exactly like that.

Where really I know what I want and what it should probably be. But, like, I also know that real life is different. And I check that's why that's such a big proponent of marriage is to have that other person who can stop you and say, look, I know you well enough to know, like, you don't actually want what you're doing right now.

I wonder what I'll feel like when my kids get married. It's so far off in my head, I don't have to think about it right now. But although your daughter's 22, isn't she?

I think she's actually 23.

You should know these things if you love her.

Well, I don't know my age.

That's true. I'm giving you a hard time because I certainly struggle to know the ages of all of the people around me, including me. I'm excited for you, Curt. I think you're actually getting the dream, which is somebody who loves your daughter as much or more than you do.

More.

Okay. Not more. Just as much or up to minus 1%.

You know, that's the thing about romantic love. Isn't it, though? You can't quite compare it now.

It's so much stronger. Yeah.

And my love for my daughter is deep, you know, but you're right, and I think that's what God intended when he sort of invented these different versions of love, is it allows that transition to move. Like where my wife and I are one, me and my kids aren't one. Right. And my kids all know I love your mom more than I love you, but I really love you guys. But you guys should just know, I love your mom so freaking much. But I love you so freaking much. But I love your mom so freaking freaking much. You know, so it's a funny thing, but, yeah, we get on the same page.

We do. And with kids, we're not always on the same page. We don't have the same rules of engagement because it's just not the same. I am thrilled that she's experiencing that version of love. That's another thing, Right?

Yeah. I wonder how you're going to feel. It sounds like there's multiple things going on right now. And same for me. Like, when I'm overwhelmed with too many things at once, I actually don't know how I feel, because you can feel a lot at the same time. And maybe it all mixes together. And then I'm not the kind of person, like, my colors are not lined up separately so that I can see. They're all, like, jumbled and mixed together.

And it can feel confusing. Which is why I say I don't know when. How I'm feeling, or even when you ask, how are you doing? If I'm being honest, I'm generally going to say, I don't know. But if I said it on the podcast in the beginning, it might be a weird thing.

Hey, I haven't seen you forever. How you doing? Oh, boy. Let me show you inside box. You want to hold my box?

Yeah. I'm not sure.

Let me ask you this. And I know I'm at the risk of going deep when we should be getting out of this, but I just want to ask a question. When you walk into A funeral. I mean, first of all, have you ever walked into a funeral and not felt sad?

I walked into a funeral last week and I felt sad. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's a time when I didn't feel sad, but I don't think so. I don't know. I think yes. I think no. You know what I'm trying to say?

You've always felt sad, you think when you walked into a funeral. I think the same for me. Some of the most grief I've ever felt is like that. Walking in and, you know, having the spiritual beliefs that I do, it's just the whole of like, I'm gonna miss you kind of thing, you know? And even if you do or don't believe they're in a better place, I think everyone agrees they're probably out of pain right now and, and all that and stuff. But I think it's good that we feel sad at a funeral. I think that there's healing that comes with it. I think it's an important part. I think God designed us that way.

I think that our wires don't need to be fixed in that way. Like, we're wired right. And so I think about just the funeral that comes to my mind is I walked into a funeral for a neighbor whose son just died of an aneurysm just out of the blue. Healthy kid, but just died of an aneurysm. And he was, you know, 19 years old and yeah, his parents are going to football star. Just amazing human being. Like, literally the day he died, literally the day he died, Rachel was at the park and we were in a little cookie cutter neighborhood and she was gonna go take around treats to a bunch of people and she was talking about how she didn't know how she was going to fit it all in. This kid Allen was like, hey, give me half them.

I'll take them around. Just give me the names and addresses. Like, that's the kind of kid we're talking about. And by the way, he's like 6 foot 4, 350 pounds of all muscle. Like, this isn't like some dude who, you know. So you get an idea. Anyway, I remember going there and just ugly crying, hugging his dad. I remember just how much it hurt.

And I remember feeling like, man, I really hate that he's going through this right now. And I hate that I'm not going to see Alan, you know, again in this life. So when you ask someone, are you happy? I think that there's a time to go over to the Sand. I use a sandbox analogy earlier. Sometimes I think it's important that we go to the cat poop side of the sandbox and spend a little time over there. But I know that this is probably one of the podcasts where I just. I really don't know how to, like, wrap this up. But as I've been thinking about it, we can't spend all our time over there.

We just can't. That's not good. I'm sure that's not good. And we gotta, like, get back over to the other side of the sandbox and build some sandcastles and knock them over and have fun laughing and doing it with other people. And so if 400 people in our life are determining if we're going to be happy or not, any given time, we're going to be unhappy. We're going to spend all our time on the poop side of the sandbox. And I don't have the answer, but if you're spending all your time on the wrong side of the sandbox, maybe that's the thing I'm trying to, like, get to is, like, how can you make some time? What relationships need to change? What kinds of things inside you you need to change? Like, just your view of what you bring on. Like, depression.

Like, I can't just say, well, then just stop taking other people's weight on you. You can't just stop being depressed either. Like, but what can you do?

I feel like I know tons and tons of people and I was thinking about that cutting off emotion thing that we were talking about. I realized I do actually do that. I do it when people are not near me most of the time. I don't carry people's feelings with me. A good example of that is if my husband and I have a disagreement. I know you and Rachel have never had a disagreement, but Matt and I have had a couple. And even if they're not a big deal, but sometimes if they are a big deal, if Matt and I are in the same room together or nearby each other, like, I feel the feelings and I feel his feelings, but if I leave the house, I totally forget because I'm an optimist with a bad memory. And I come back and Matt is still holding on, I'm like, what's wrong? It's like double offense, right? But I do feel like if I'm away, if I don't feel the same holding onto people's emotions, like, I don't have to do it the same way.

So it's really. If they're near me and not 400 people are never near me. And one of them's a baby and he's always happy.

Yeah. And that just fixes everything.

Yeah. So I agree though, like, it's hard because living in the world, we have access to so much information that is meant to make us unhappy. I think of how blessed we are here and how other people suffer and struggle every day. And that makes me feel unhappy for them.

Just for like living conditions, you mean?

Oh yeah, for living conditions, for mental anguish, for suffering. Like I'm just carrying the suffering of all the world on my shoulders at moments. Right. But not always. We could be unhappy all the time if we wanted to. We could.

Oh, there's lots of good reasons to be unhappy.

100%. Yeah. I don't live my life in a constant state of unhappiness or even mostly unhappiness. I feel like most of the time I am pretty content. And then there are times when I'm very, very happy, but those are short lived times. But most of my life I'm very content with how things are going. And then there are moments where it dips, you know, that's my ebb and flow, my emotional wave. And I think I wish I was more stoic.

I will say that I wish I had more of that, like, got it out instinct and. But I don't. I don't have that. I don't think I ever will. If you see me being like that, it means that I've probably changed as a person and that might not be a good thing.

Yeah, God made you a certain way. I think that's another thing is that it's like the scriptures and our person, like we read the scriptures to the point to where we take everything out of the scriptures that like, is on the surface so that we can get past that to get to the depth of it all. And it wasn't until recently I was kind of going through the story of Jonah and the whale.

That's a fun story.

Yeah, it's a fun story, but I just read it in a new way where Jonah is pissed that he has to save these Assyrians that are absolute jerks. Like, not jerks, but like torture monsters. And then God's gonna send me over there and I have to be the one to talk to them and then I'm gonna save them. And then they accepted it. He's pissed that they accepted it. Anyway.

I don't even remember that part of the story.

Yeah, because everyone talks about the whale.

Well, because that's what Sunday school taught me is, like, he went in. Was he on a boat and he went into the whale?

Or just he got on a boat and he was running away. And as he was running away, God was gonna kill the whole ship because, like, of what he was running away from. So they threw him overboard, the storm stops, the whale swallows him. But the reason he was running was because God wanted him to go preach to a bunch of people who had destroyed his people, had absolutely just tortured and decimated, like, horrible people. And so, like, the reason you don't know that part of the story is because we talk about, like, either the surface part of the story or we talk about, like, this little doctrinal truth. And we, like, try to, like, like, pull out these little micro gems.

I learned it when I was, like, 6 or 8, so I think that probably is also why they taught me that part of the story.

But the point I'm getting at here is that it's also like our own personal self is that we look at ourselves as, like, we can either look at such a microscopic level that it loses the story meaning, or we can look at it from such a surface level that we're not actually getting any depth out of it. And it's like, we don't have to get past who we actually are. God designed us this way. We don't have to, like. Now, some people might doctrinally disagree with me, but God made you in his image, and then he gave you your spirit. Now, your spirit has some things that need to be overcome, and your spirit has some things that need to be magnified and improved. And I feel like a lot of us spend our time trying to reprogram ourselves into somebody else or something else that we actually don't even necessarily want to be for the sake of coming into compliance or pleasing, you know, even having a relationship with God to where God is. He created you and he's not happy with you.

Now it's your job to conform. And while I would say that if you walk into a store and you just want to steal stuff all the time, I think we can agree that that's something that probably needs to change. But if your predisposition is creative, but, oh, that creativity is just really getting in the way of me being able to knock on enough doors to tell people about Jesus, well, there's people who are predisposed to want to, like, talk to people about Jesus. So maybe God has another work for you to do. Right? And I guess that's all I'm saying is like, as we try to find out what makes us happy and who, we're giving control over our happiness. And as we spend our time in the right sides of the sandbox as needed. I'm not arguing the point that we shouldn't ever allow other people to affect our emotions, but I think what I'm coming to is, is that maybe it's important for us to, like, really learn about, number one, are we becoming a better version of ourselves? And are we spending time on the right side of the sandbox as appropriate? I don't know what the split needs to be. It's probably not even 50.

50. I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be 50, 50. It seems like we should spend more time in happiness than in unhappiness. And I think that's where the whole point of joy, of people seeking out joy, is, because joy can actually help us get through the unhappy times. But I don't know what that is. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live their life, but I think one of the epiphanies that I'm having at this time is that I might need to, like, look around and say, you are unnecessarily spending too much time on the wrong side of the sandbox.

Yeah. It's taking up too much of your brain space because you care about these things. Like, it wouldn't be in your head if you didn't care if it wasn't weighing on you. You know how something can be really weighing on you, and you tell a friend, and they're like, why are you thinking about that? That's not even a big deal. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just hand over these things to your friend for a while? Here, Curt, hand me your things. I'll take them. Because I don't know what they are, but because I don't know, they're not a big deal to me. So just.

Well, I literally just got off a conversation before this call, I got off a conversation with Brittany. I've talked about her on the past, and I was telling her how I was perceiving some things. I love Brittany so much.

She goes, hi, Brittany. I love her, too, because I've met and talked with her several times.

She's great. She goes, well, your perception is wrong. That's not how anyone else in the world sees it. She's like, isn't it great that I can just tell you these things?

Like, I love that. I think you should believe her just in case it's helpful.

Yeah, it is helpful. And I love her for being willing to say that to me, but that is sometimes the truth. The truth of it is, is that you can be 100 sure that something is and the truth, and then someone, you know, maybe you don't have it right.

You need a Britney. Everybody needs a Britney. I have my Denise. You have your Britney. I think having. Talking to people about these things is important because sometimes we do build things up in our heads. And see, after this episode, I need to know what's going on, because I'm not going to ask you on the episode. But I, like, what is this thing? And then I might be saying, oh, yeah, that's a big dealer.

No, your perception is wrong, Curt. I wouldn't. I'm not a Britney.

Well, I probably wouldn't be comfortable, like, saying it out to the whole world, but I will tell you this is that she's the one that told me. She said, you have some pretty internalized shame around this, don't you? Like, I sure do. And she's like, yeah, nobody else feels that. And like, for her to call it out that strong was, like, really eye opening.

Yeah, I would say so. Well, that's like, a gift for you if you accept it. I think we did a good therapy session today because. Well, I don't know if you feel any better. I actually do.

I told you at the beginning of the episode has been weighing on me really heavily. And even though I don't feel like I have the answer, I do feel like I have the next step here, and that is to sort of just realize and, like, pay attention to, okay, how much time you spend on the other side of the sandbox, and are you unnecessarily doing this? And also, and I would say this to all people listening as well. Like, if this is resonating with you. One of the other steps that I feel like goes along with that is looking at the relationships that you have and maybe having to have some conversations with other people and saying, like, look, I've been really stressing out about this part of our relationship more than I think I should. And I'm curious, like, does my stressing out about this thing feel warranted to you? Because in that moment, you may well find out that you've been playing in the cat poop. I hate that I'm using this analogy, but you've been playing in the cat poop, and nobody's getting anything out. Like, it's not serving you. It's not serving anyone else.

And I want us to be able to be here on Earth, living the life that God intended for it. And I don't believe it was for misery. I really don't.

That's a debate for another time. Because I don't believe it was for misery, but I don't believe it wasn't for misery. Who knows? We'll have to talk about it.

That would be an interesting conversation. I'm just going to throw it in this episode as a bit of a teaser because we can add it to our list of things to discuss. Many religions. And I'm curious how you take, you know, being where you're at right now in your journey. Many people believe that Eve, as an Adam and Eve, she thwarted God's plan and that he basically had to throw us into misery and he couldn't control that.

That seems weird.

Oh, okay.

No, I'm not saying that it's. I just think it's weird that God would have done that.

Okay. Because I was gonna say that my take on it is, is that God's plan didn't get messed up and that he knew all along that the way we would get into this good and bad world could only happen not through a gift from God, who can only give good gifts, but through consequences to actions that he knew would happen at some point and he was willing to wait a millennia.

This is a great conversation to have because everything you just said, I'm like, that sounds like a crazy game to me. Like, why is God playing these games? It doesn't make any sense at all.

Let's make that a topic where we talk about, like, why is life the way it is? And is God playing games with us? Like, that's a really good, good question. And as it relates to the Adam and Eve story, I think that unfortunately, we're probably not gonna be able to have a conversation just you and me. Because my perspective on the Adam and Eve introduction into mortality versus more of a mainstream Christian who might believe that Eve screwed everything up and made it terrible. I think you're more. That middle ground probably is what I'm guessing.

I don't even know if I believe in Adam and Eve.

So we would need to have, like, someone probably on to, like, challenge me more.

Yeah, I listen. And listening doesn't mean I agree or disagree. I'm listening with a curious mind. But sometimes I am like, wait a minute. That seems outside the realm of possibility. And this must be discussed in the future.

This is actually one of the areas that I feel most confident and soulless in, like, what God's plan is for me. So I actually think it would be a very fun and eye opening conversation. And I am afraid that if we don't have someone who has an opposing view to me, I'm afraid that I don't want to go unchallenged, is what I'm saying.

Oh, let's find somebody to challenge you. Okay, I like that. And someday let's have somebody challenge me.

Like you. Just tell me what to do and I'll challenge you on it.

Thank you. That's not very challenging if I have to tell you what it is.

Matt needs bigger muscles for you to lay your head on.

No, softer muscles.

Big, hard, rough rocks.

Okay, that is wrong. I disagree. And I should say Matt has listened to every one of our episodes.

Really? That's so cool.

I don't know if he's our biggest fan or not because he's not said, I'm your biggest fan, but I would imagine that he must be besides Garrett. Well, it's definitely besides Garrett because Matt probably has to listen to the episodes.

Yeah. Rachel has listened to several. She surprised me the other day, bringing one up that she said something. I'm like, wait, what? And she's like, yeah, I listen.

Oh, my God.

I don't know that she listened to every single one.

I know, but still, that's pretty cool. Was it a positive thing that she said or. Curt, why did you say this?

Yeah, she just threw out like a. Just a comment. I'm like, hey, you've been listening. She's like, yeah.

Oh, that's a nice surprise. That's a way to keep your marriage alive is just by having her surprise you by listening to the podcast.

Yeah, but now I can't be talking behind her back.

No. Oh, wait, you have to go to the wedding now. And I have to go bring my son soon to his sports melody. Thank you.

Thank you for today. It's been awesome.

Yeah, it's been really fun talking about how we live in the cat poop of the sandbox.

Keep wandering over to it. I wish I would have come up with a better analogy, though, because I'm kind of hating that.

Let's work on one, because that's going to be a reoccurring theme and we should make sure that it's a much nicer reoccurring theme.

Yeah, I don't feel great about referencing it anymore.

It's okay. I hope that Mikaela's wedding is majestic and beautiful and that you don't cry too many tears, especially during your father daughter dance, that you don't embarrass her with all of your bawling. I wish I had thought to send you a customized tissue box. Like, I'm sure they make tissues with people's faces on them.

Oh, you know me so well. You know me so well.

Yeah, that would have been a good thing to do, but I'm excited to hear about the details and good luck. Not that you need the luck.

Yeah. Well, thank you all for joining us today. It's been an absolute pleasure discussing it.

And also into you.

Thanks everybody for joining us at the Sole Proprietor Podcast. It has been an absolute pleasure having these discussions with you. If you wouldn't mind taking just a few minutes to rate and review us wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it would mean so much to us. We really do read each of these reviews and it gives us the opportunity to get the word out to more people who could benefit from hearing about topics like this and so many others. If you want to engage with us at our website, maybe share some topics or ideas of other people that you'd like to hear on the podcast, feel free to go to soleproprietorpodcast.com and share with us your thoughts and ideas about what we could do in the future to bring even more light into the world.