 So my natural inclination is I just want to bang. I want intense relationships I want to be the center of attention and I want constant excitement and drama Right. I want the world to be a more exciting dramatic place Wow the 12 step experience has been a real challenge for me I Want excitement and the 12 step approach to life is living life just a notch or two above boring And that does not come naturally to me. I want my life like What I imagine, you know, it's like at a big city TV newsroom so I I worked at Channel 5 in Los Angeles for a while and like there's you know the news operation and It's exciting place like being a journalist is exciting If it's one of the things I loved about being a journalist Yeah, I used to look like a rabbi. I used to have a beard used to look quite rabbinical Man, I just love excitement But I don't want excitement in my safe place. Like I don't want excitement and drama in In my home. I don't want excitement. I don't want drama in my You know closest relationships, you know, I wouldn't want I don't like drama with my girlfriend I don't like hearing from her. We have to talk You know, I don't want drama with my source of income. All right, if I've got a source of income One primary source of income or two primary sources of income I don't want drama and excitement and danger with regard to my income. Now. I'm not less religious now I just simply remove the beard so a beard makes you look more religious, but Sometimes looks can be deceiving. So I've maintained approximately the same level of religiosity for the last 20 years So the last 20 years I've only delving in orthodox synagogues of any Affiliated in orthodox Judaism So my social life and my community for the last 20 years plus is overwhelmingly being in orthodox Judaism. So that's where my friends are. That's where my community is That's where I feel most comfortable But man my I love excitement my father Would say about me that you know that I loved excitement like craving drama and excitement. I Think it's it's served as a distraction from me from my own like inner discontent in a misery in a low-grade depression Like I think excitement and drama has been a way for me to escape my life condition So I think I got into journalism because of the adrenaline rush, you know, choosing a big story So as I've learned to like myself and I'd say the last five years 99.9% of the time I've liked myself I have less need for drama But I still enjoy Enjoy some excitement and drama. I mean look what I did with my Andy Nowicki Interview a couple of weeks ago and then how I rode that drama for the last two weeks So don't want it in my personal life. Don't want it in my safe space Other than that I want life to be exciting Like I want exciting new challenges. I get bored really easy You know, I lack I like the zits flash I think that's the The Yiddish term for the ability to just sit in your chair And do your job and just toil away. Okay. I lack zits flash I'm not a marathon runner in that sense. I'm a sprinter Like I get enthused about something and I pursue it to an absurd end Then I drop it and I move on to something else. I'm an intellectual juggalo Like always falling in love with with a new idea But ultimately staying loyal to none Yeah, not everything can be exciting for long. Yeah, so that's why it's been important for me to Let go of my need for distraction from my inner discontent and frustration and come to terms with myself and reconstruct myself I know this is going to sound hokey on spiritual lines on lines of being useful helpful And contributing to the people around me So when I can be useful helpful and contributing to the people around me Then I feel good about me. I get connected with others And I don't have the compulsive need to distract myself from who I am So I don't feel like I have a strong need to distract myself anymore from who I am And so I feel like my need for for silence has been My need for excitement has reduced So I think I can kind of correlate my level of mental health psychological stability my my spiritual spiritual state with how intense my need for excitement is so If I'm getting getting crazy about sports, for example Yes, I've been to Israel twice. I was in Israel in 1970 And I went back in year 2000 So I was in Israel when I was a little Christian kid We went to Gethsemane in Mount Mount of Olives and walked the path that Jesus walked in Jerusalem and Bethlehem And then I went back on a Jewish Singles trip to Israel in year 2000. So I write about these trips on My website lookfor.net if you just go to the about section And Israel marked a very important Point in my life because that's where I graduated from diapers. So I was four and a half When I no longer needed diapers. So I was a little slow to graduate from diapers, but it finally happened in the holy land So all praise to the holy land because that's where I let go of my need for diapers and So I think one reason that I've been like sports crazy much of my life Is that it served as a distraction from you know, whatever was irritating me or like whatever emptiness or despair Or depression or failure that I felt in myself You know getting involved in us watching sports would distract me from My despair now that I've been able to find some spiritual practices from the 12 steps that To enable me to let go of despair and to have a more helpful hopeful contributing Attitude Then I feel like my need for excitement is not as intense as it used to be but it's still there Like I still love stirring things up So maybe I've got a lot of spiritual work yet to do