Comfortably Numb - A Shrinking World

Most people spend their entire life stressed without ever giving a single thought as to what it is they really want or what's important to them. See, I'm here to cut through all that noise connecting you to yourself and the life that you were meant to live. I used to slave away at a corporate job that I hated, but I broke through the social norms and pursued my passion. As a result, I own my own coffee company, I'm espresso sommelier, and I get to travel the world. You too can live a life that you love, but it starts with getting clear about what you want. It starts with a new decision. I'm your host, Donnie Rouse. You are listening to the podcast One Life Comfortably Numb. What is it that you are avoiding? In life, when we experience pain, there is the tendency to try to numb the pain with things such as excess coffee or alcohol or sex. But it is important to be conscious of what is the underlying thing. What is it that you're trying to ignore? Because the longer you let that thing go on, the worse it becomes, right? Because you start to ignore, it's like a dripping faucet. If it just continues to drip, drip, drip, and you ignore it, there's going to be a point where it's going to start to drip in excess. And all of a sudden now you need a new pipe and maybe you need a new floor because it leaked all over the place. So we don't want that to happen for your life. If we become aware, if we make changes up front, we could avoid that larger, that bigger long term pain somewhere in the future. So this, this post is very much an inspired post by the ride home I just received. And so there's not going to be the questions like how I would typically pose them in my, in my episodes, although I probably will come up with something at the very end. So let me tell you about this. This ride home. So I was getting a ride home and I was conversing with, with my driver and somehow we got started talking about travel. I think I was probing to see like where he was from. I always am curious as to where people are from because one, mainly because I like to know where they're from because maybe it's a place I want to travel and they might have some recommendations. But also it's just a great way of getting to know somebody and creating rapport. So it turns out he's from New York and one of the first things he leads with was something that immediately created rapport with me. He goes, man, he's like, there's nothing to do around here. And he's, you see, because he, I don't know if he just works in Stanford, but he was just saying here, he said that, you know, the people work, then they go out and they, they just drink. They go to, you know, restaurants, bars, they drink and then they repeat the same thing again. So I, right when he said that, immediately he created a rapport with me. I was like, yeah, amen. I say the same exact thing. Because in cities that I've traveled, there's a lot more going on and there's a lot more readily available within the city. I just came back from Porto and there's. You can go hiking, you can go to the beach. Everything is like this little ecosphere. And even just sitting at a cafe, talking with friends, watching sunset. Back home here that isn't the case. I mean, it's possible, but it's a completely different culture. It's more like when I'm here, I know that I find myself doing work, little play until I have that trip plan. But that is not a healthy life. And I acknowledge that. And I'm working on making it so that there is more of that work life balance and that I'm somewhere else in the world. But what I wanted to. So one of the key parts of the conversation we were having was literally talking about how people self medicate. As I had mentioned, you could self medicate with anything, anything that you overindulge in because maybe it's trying to take your mind away from some other alarm that's going off. But you're, it's almost like you're, you're choosing, your alarm is going off, but you're choosing to hit the snooze button. And that can have disastrous effects. I had met someone once and we were. Went to a bar, we were having a drink and then they were having many drinks. Once they had like a, you know, I don't even know how many drinks they had. They started literally spewing and like throwing up like their entire life to me, which I'm no judgment, but they were talking about like the desire, like hating their work, family issues and then the desire to travel and see the world. But all the fears around that, like, oh, that's too much, it's too scary. There's not dangerous. What if I get kidnapped? All these other things. And I tried to make a recommendation, but it just, it was going in one ear and out the other. So why do I tell you this? I tell you this because I want you to come Away with it and ask yourself, well, in what ways, in what areas of my life am I numbing myself? Am I avoiding making a decision that I know that I need to make? I'm going to go back to the travel, because that was actually in this conversation I was having with my driver. We were talking. He's like, well, you know what? I love to fish. I love to do stuff outdoors, and I love to travel. I was like, really? Well, where have you traveled? I was starting to get curious. I was like, all right, this is cool. He said, doctor. And I'm like, all right. Well, yeah, it's travel. In my mind, I was saying this. I'm like, well, you know, but it's. You know, it's travel, but it's very comfortable travel because, you know, resorts, beaches, you know, it. Yeah, it's travel. But I was looking for more exotic. And then he started sharing how he went to Tokyo. I was like, now you're talking. Because, I mean, you can travel to Mexico and Canada and have Tokyo on your list of places to travel. And I will give you giant kudos, because Japan is just a very different experience if you've ever been there. Culturally, it's very diverse, very rich. I love Japan, to say the least. So that caught me. I was like, now you're talking. And you went on to say, well, you know, there's so many different ways of living. The people there were so interesting. And, you know, he was with a. I don't know if it was a family member or a cousin or a friend who was a rapper. And he went to this show, and all these Japanese people who were attending the concert were singing a song. He's like, I just thought it was the most wildest thing ever. He's like, the world is so big. He's like, yeah, you know, people stay in their towns. They don't leave. I was like, well, isn't that. It's so true. I said, well, tell me, you know, like, having done that, like, how does that affect your life? He's like, it gives me perspective. I don't have to keep up with the Joneses anymore. Like, I do my thing. For me, I do it because I want to get a house. I want to give it so this way, my kids have a place. He's like, but after that, I'm done with this. I like to just travel, be on the world. And he was literally singing the song that I like to sing. And it's hard to understand this. What I am getting really, really worked up and excited about. Unless you've experienced it, unless you've had the opportunity to literally step away from all the stuff, all the noise that's in the world or not. Well, in the world, in the environment, especially here in the States, because I find it here to be worse than anywhere. All these different things trying to get your attention, trying to tell you why you're not good enough, what you need to be successful. There's literally. You're always being bombarded with messages. When I travel, I mean, I say, well, the first thing is when I'm traveling, my social media stuff is very limited, right. So I'm not being bombarded with that messaging. But I'm also perspective to look at the people around me and say, okay, well, what's going on here? I notice when I travel that friends are getting. Groups of friends are getting together and people aren't as glued, although it's starting to spread a little bit, but they're not glued to their phone into the media like we are here in the United States. And that is a big issue because when you're literally. When you're in that fight or flight mode, you're always looking for the next thing. And you're literally, you're glued to this device. When all the device is there, it's really set up to distract you, to pull you away from the life that you were meant to live. Maybe that was the intention of this the entire time. Right. I wasn't sure where I was going with this post because it's very much done on a whim. But maybe it's the intention of this, the divine purpose was to get you to. I mean, that's probably the biggest addiction people have is their device. I find myself going on like, I'm like, I'll find myself wanting to click on the Instagram button and then say no and being conscious. Sometimes I give in other times. I'm very good at not going there because I realize once I go in there, it's no longer what I want to create in the world. It's what people are trying to push on me. It's demands being made. You have to take the reins to your life if you want to create a life that you're going to love. You want to create memories that you're going to love and something you're being excited about. So I guess I will leave you with some questions. Let's look at your life. Like, where are those unhappy moments? And I'm looking for not so much the relationship, but like, where is. You know, it's like Maybe work. Maybe it's like right after work, you're like, oh, my God, I hate my freaking life and my job. And it literally spills into everything else. And as a result, you go to the bar with friends, you guys take a few tequila shots, 5, 20, and then you go home, you pass out, only to repeat it the second, you know, the next day. Where are you? Where are you? Numbing your life with something else. And again, it could be social media going on there just to see what's new in the world versus taking that same amount of time and putting it into directing your life. I was talking with one of my friends, and we were looking at our social. Our screen time on our iPhones, and we're like, all right, well, how much time do you spend? He's like, oh, I spent an hour on Facebook. And I was like, yeah, I spent like 30 minutes on Instagram. You know, some of it is messaging and stuff like that. But there are days where I might spend excess of that, and there's some days when I spend less. But it's a problem when it gets excessive. Because what can you do with. If you were spending an hour a day, what can you do with seven hours of time? Seven hours a time? You could become proficient in a new skill, a new career. You could build a side hustle, but in that, you're wasting it on this thing, that doesn't matter. Maybe posting a smiley face showing the world, hey, this is me. This is what I ate this morning. So when you've figured out what it is that you're trying to numb, what is the root cause? What is it that you're trying to numb? What are the feelings that you're trying to cover up? I've been doing some emotional work, really understanding emotions and emotions. If you don't address them and you just kind of suppress them, you sweep onto the carpet, they start to show up in different ways. They start to make themselves louder. And often when they spring back up, they're springing up to something that's not even relevant to what initially caused them. What is the underlying factor? What is it? Maybe it's like the relationship that you've been in for three years, and you realize it's not the right relationship, but you're just kind of going with emotions. Or maybe it's your career, or maybe it's the town that you live in that, you know, you want to try something different, but it's like, you know, it's comfortable. What is it for you then? What is the change that that emotion is asking you or poking you to make. And then lastly, what would be the effect if you made that choice? Or maybe if, like I said, I always go back to travel because I love travel, because it gives you a different perspective in life when you're around different people, when you're not around the influences that you're surrounded with every single day, you start to start, you start to think differently, you start to see life differently. So this is about seeing, well, what other options would there be? Like, what would the possibilities be in your life? Write those down and really feel it. Because our lives, our worlds are created from within. Really, everything we see in the outside world is only a reflection of what's inside of us. So, I mean, it's a, you know, growth is all inner game, not an external game. You change the way you, you see, see things inside, you change the way you see the world. But travel does help, right? Because again, it. By putting yourself in new situations and new surroundings, you're, you're, you're, you're forced to look for answers. One of the many reasons why I love travel, aside from, like, the fact that, you know, I feel like otherwise life escapes you. So that is all I've got for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, please subscribe. You could hit that subscribe button. You could ask me a question or send a comment. I would love to hear from you by visiting www.donnyrouse.com again. Www.donnyrouse.com and if any or all of this resonates with you, I'm going to be doing a course launching in September. And the course is going to be around everything that I speak of in these podcasts. It's about getting a clear vision for what it is that you want in life, understanding why you want it, what is it going to give you, right? Because it's not enough to just have like, oh, well, I want the car, I want to go to Portugal. It's not enough just to have these things. It's the emotions behind it, the reasons why that are going to drive you or what's going to change you. And then lastly, discovering what the strategy is to get there. And once you have that, once you're focused on exactly what it is that you want to create now, all of a sudden, you could put the blinders on and look straight at that vision without being distracted by everything else. Everyone and everything that is trying to take your attention from you, that is going to come later. September. So if you want to be part of the inauguration, like the first group. You can send me a message again through the website. So that is all I've got for you guys today. Guys, thank you so, so much for tuning in. I wish you the most beautiful and wonderful life. In closing, the reason why I'm doing this is because I know that life is meant to be beautiful. I believe life is meant to be beautiful. And I believe that you are capable of creating a life beyond your wildest dreams. That's what I want for you, that's what I want for me, and that's what I want to give. So, again, I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you so much for tuning in. Remember, you get one life. Live it. God bless. Thank you so much.