Thoughts On Sadness, Jealousy, and Appreciation

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What's Up Fast Laners Ryan Danny Moran here. Welcome to Freedom Fast Lane, where it is usually my job to talk about building businesses and investing the profits. But today we're going to do something a little bit different. Rather than do a long form podcast episode, I'm going to be reading to you some posts that I put on Facebook earlier this month that got a particularly large amount of attention and give you a little bit of commentary on their background and go a little bit deeper into the topics that were mostly about happiness and finding fulfillment in the day to day. I was inspired to share my thoughts on this recently because, look, we live in this world that is just so full of us comparing what's going on inside of us to the outsides of other people. We do this by listening to people talk about how much money they're making, or looking at their lives on social media, or looking at what they talk about in their businesses. When I was at this networking circle recently where everybody there was just talking about how amazing they were and how much money they made and it just makes me feel dirty and nasty and I know that I'm not the only person that hates that type of an environment. So rather than just feel insecure or rather than just deal with it privately, I decided to put some of it out there and it got a particularly large amount of attention because a lot of people really resonated with it. So I'm gonna read you a couple of these posts and then give you my commentary on them. So these were Originally posted@facebook.com ryandanielmoran and we'll start with a post from September 1, 2016.

When I was a kid, all I wanted to be was a millionaire. Now that I am a millionaire, all I want to be is a carefree kid. Right after I lost weight and had abs, I felt too skinny and all I wanted was to add muscle. Now that I've added muscle and I'm the strongest that I've ever been in my life. I All I think about is how much I miss my abs. Before I had a daughter, all I wanted was kids. I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything. But I miss the times when I was alone. When I had a small business, all I wanted was to have a big business. Now that I'm growing a big business, I miss the days when it was small. When I lived in Cleveland, all I wanted was to get out. Now that I live and love Austin, I miss Cleveland. When Esther was a baby and screaming in the middle of the night, I just wanted her to get older now that she's older, even though we are way more connected and she is way more fun, I sometimes miss when she was a baby. I realized the other day that there are always two sides to everything. There are the problems that you see in everything and there are the positives of the exact same situation that someone else wants. We feel the problems, we miss the positives. We rarely if ever see the positives when we are in them unless we pause to enjoy them. We only reflect upon them, which creates a sense of longing. A dear friend of mine lost her little brother this week. My heart breaks for her. I have multiple times found myself crying for her even though I barely knew the brother. It made me realize that there are things in my life that I overlook, but if it was taken away, it would be all that I longed for. I don't spend my days thinking about my brother, but if he was taken away from me, he would be all that I wanted back in my life. The times that Esther is screaming if she was taken away from me, all I would want is to comfort a screaming baby. The long work days as we build something new. If I was working a job, I would long for the idea of building something for myself. The extra flab on my bottom abs while I bulk up. If I was hungry, I would do anything to have a little extra fat in exchange for eating food. The beautiful curse about being human is that we are wired to look for problems that need to be fixed. That doesn't make us happy, it makes us effing miserable. But it does make us grow and survive. We have to consciously pause to think about what is great. But you get to control whatever you focus on. And I can promise you that someone longs for what you live. They long for the little moments that we all ignore even though once they had it, they would long for something else. No matter where you are, what you are up to, or what is going on, you have so much to be thankful for and to appreciate. These are the good old days.

I was inspired to write this post when I was driving through one of my old neighborhoods and I felt a twinge of longing to be in that part of my life again. And at that point I was alone. I was single. I was building new businesses and I missed that. I missed the place where I lived. I missed who I lived with. I missed being new to that area. And what struck me was that when I really got honest with myself and remembered what it was like to be there, I wasn't that happy there. I had good times, I was growing, I was working on myself, but I was longing for something different, just like I long for something different now. Now I was wishing that I had my life today back then. And now I want the life I had. So our brains are wired to make us grow, to make comparisons. And if we aren't conscious of that, if instead we compare ourselves to the illusory idea in our brains of what could be, rather than comparing ourselves to where we came from or to things that empower us, it's very easy to get sad and depressed extremely quickly. So I wrote this post mostly as a reflection on the fact that I'm realizing in my own life how I spend so much energy trying to get something different and and spend so little time focusing on what I do have. Now I have three people that I would consider mentors and they are Jesse Elder, Travis Sago, and my best friend Mark Jenny. And the thing that I have noticed among the three of them is that they have this rare combination of being both extremely successful and really happy. And I say that's a rare combination because most of the successful people I know are constantly pushing happiness away from them by wanting something different. They get to a new place, they want something different, and now there's a gap that they need to close. And as soon as they close that, there's a new gap and there's a new thing that they want. My three mentors have this rare ability to be both really happy and successful. And the difference the common theme among all three of them is that they practice active appreciation. They practice regular time to pause and appreciate the good in their lives. And I really believe that that is the reason why they are both so successful but also so happy. This next post that I'm going to read to you was posted on September 5th of 2016 and this was inspired because I.

Well, I realized that people see me as a model of success and happiness. I see other people as models for success and happiness and I know that they are looking at other people as models for success and happiness. After posting this, I was really surprised to see Josh Bizzoni comment because I think of Josh as someone who is the model for success and happiness. And he said he read this post and he said after reading this I realized my younger self would be really proud of who I am. But today I feel like I'm lazy and other people are more successful than me, which I found really interesting. So here is the post from September 5th. Yesterday I got angry at Esther and yelled at her. She cried. I was so frustrated that I literally pouted in the corner for the next hour. Later, her mom and I fought. I was wrong. Since then, I have had more than once had to fight off feelings of failure, inadequacy or loneliness. I'm also frustrated with my body and I'm beginning to wonder if it will ever look the way that I want it to. Plus, I have chronic stomach problems that make me a bloated fart machine. If I see anything delicious, it's super embarrassing. I constantly feel behind at work. I'm at the office right now on Labor Day. I haven't recorded a podcast in weeks. I just realized that my Tesla has an expired registration. So does my minibike and my other car. I haven't meditated in who knows how long. I've developed a weird relationship with food since I started training properly. I both crave it and resent it at the same time. Pretty sure that's some sort of a condition. At the peak of my frustration, I logged onto Facebook and saw so many happy people. They are all fit, attractive, happy, and they have perfect families and abs. Everyone is happy but me, I thought. And then I caught it.

People say the same thing when they see me. They see the Tesla, the smiling one year old, the speeches in the downtown apartment, the dad jokes and the pictures that I post at the peak of my fitness regimen. And it's true, I live a great life and I worked like hell to get it. But they don't see the long days and nights or the constant questioning if I'm on the right path. They don't see the stress of wondering if people will show up to events or the hidden fear that I'm not providing enough value. But this is social media and people think that I have it all together. That's how others see you too. People look at you and see the smiles. They don't feel the hurts. They only feel their own. People see your car and envy it. They think you don't know how lucky she is.

They see your house and envy it. They see your partner too, and they think that they are pretty damn cute. You see those same people too, but you only saw their outfit and feared that they had it all together. They don't have money problems or fight with their spouse. Only you do. You think to yourself, everything that you take for granted, someone else envies and you're busy missing them because you are feeling the hurts. None of us have it all together. Most of us feel a twinge of loneliness because we have replaced real connection with social media. I don't post this because I love pity parties. I live a pretty sweet life and if you live in a first world country then you probably do too. But we are constantly bombarded with bad news on the news and good news from our peers. We are left with a gap that makes us think that our lives are going to hell and everyone else's is friggin perfect. Everyone else must be so happy. All our brains know how to do is compare. So when we see all the painted smiles on Facebook and spray tanned ads on Instagram, we immediately create a comparison in our brain. We feel bad about ourselves. Meanwhile, someone envies you. Choose your comparisons carefully.

I had a few people write in to me after I posted this and they said something like you don't know what my life looked like for the last couple of years and I think you know it doesn't matter because somebody else is envious of you. There's There is something about our lives that someone else envies and we are busy overlooking it because we are focused on the pain. Our brains are made to find problems. Our brains are made to try and fix what is wrong. Once we have something, we very quickly normalize it. It's why you can get a new car or a new house and be bored with it in two weeks. Because we're made to normalize things. We are made to look for the next thing. It's how we grow. It's how we hunt. It's how we survive. But it does not make us happy unless we pause and we appreciate what is there. It's why I can still feel unsuccessful sometimes. It's why Josh Bazzoni, who commented on the post, can sometimes feel unhappy or unsuccessful at times. And meanwhile someone else is taking their situation and comparing it to what they think someone else's situation is. And if we don't pause and if we don't appreciate what's in our lives, then we could totally miss it. And that really scares me. And it has given me reason to slow down and to appreciate Esther being the age she is. My business being at the level it is for my audience size to be the size that it is rather than changing all of these things which sometimes I want to happen. Hey, thanks for entertaining me in a reading of these posts. I hope you found value in them. If you'd like to leave your feedback, you can do it over at freedomfastlane.com or on my facebook@facebook.com Ryandaniel Moran as always, I appreciate you listening and I'll see you on the next episode of Freedom Fastlane.