 G'day mate, 40 here. So one of my favorite songs in Hebrew, in Judaism, refers to life as a narrow bridge. The important thing is not to be afraid. So I love watching these guys here walk a tightrope over the sand. Reminds me of that song. There aren't many songs that I can like join in with the whole community and sing with great enthusiasm. But that's one of those rare songs. I love that life is a narrow bridge. The important thing is not to be afraid. So one of the most fatuous books that I've ever read is The Secret, which is all about how if you just believe in something, if you just imagine something that you'll help it come true. And one of the more ridiculous self-help techniques that I've read about and heard about are affirmations. Like the more often you tell yourself, you know, I'm lovable, the more you'll remind yourself of all the ways that you're not lovable. The more often you tell yourself I'm a success, the more often you remind yourself of all the ways you're not a success. So there are far better techniques that you can you can write about such as, you know, what are ways that I can become lovable or what are ways that I can become successful? Well, you know, what can I do this week to be more loving or to be more lovable or to be more successful? Right? We need a narrative. People tend to be happier when they have a narrative that makes sense of life gives them a sense of autonomy and goals that they can make progress towards. But just these meaningless affirmations every day and every way I'm getting better and better or, you know, I'm good looking and I'm smart and Dalgona people like me, like that doesn't really do anything. But if you can you can add a spiritual dimension to affirmations such as good on you 40, you did you did a good live stream to the extent that you did. And that's more God's success than mine. All right. That's an affirmation I learned in a 12 step program. A good job 40 to the extent that I did good. And to whatever extent I did good. That's that's more to God's credit than to mine. And that's a way that you can feel good about what you're doing to the extent that you're doing good and feel a connection with God and with the transcendent. So you can have affirmations that bring God into it, bring the transcendent into it. Then I think you've got something that works. And if you want to write about, you know, what are ways that I can become more lovable? What are lovable things that I can do for other people? What's something that I can do this week that would make me feel successful? What's the thing that I can do this week that would make me feel useful, that would contribute to the lives of other people? Finding that meaning in your life and that sense of autonomy and that sense of making progress towards goals like it doesn't have to come from your work and doesn't have to come from your profession, but come from your hobbies or your volunteer positions or your religion or your community or your friendships. Books is by Victor Frankel, man search for meaning. Makes the point that the meaning of life is not a question you ask life. It's a question that life asks you every day, every hour, every minute. So right now the meaning of my life this minute is that I'm making a video talking about things that are important to me that I've been reading about and that have benefited my life. Hey Jennifer, it's great to hear from you. How are you? What are you doing these days? How do you account for the dramatic transformation in the quality of your life? So good to hear from you and Mickey G in the comments. Man, I remember you guys from 20 years ago. Now it sounds like you're headed in a positive direction. Sounds like you found a life that works. Thank God I found a life that works too. It does not come from writing a gossip column. It does not come from self-aggrandizement. It does not come from the ruthless attention seeking. It does not come from putting my blogging on my blogging ahead of my best interests. Yeah, spirituality, yes. We're just an ordinary older couple. Right, but you found meaning and purpose in your life and you found goals that you're making progress towards. That's great and you found a life that works and you don't need the the adulation of the crowd. Right? That hole in the soul that all that adulation meets for people. We have to find a way of meeting that hole in our soul, ourselves, through the way we live and all the things that we used to desperately want other people to give us such as attention and love and respect. Right, as we get older we can learn to give them to ourselves. Some people don't feel alive unless they're on TV or unless they have thousands of fans, unless they're the center of attention. But we can learn to give us that attention that we yearn for. Very much very happy, peaceful and simple life. Yeah, we've had that life in the fast lane. We've had that life where we're the center of attention. We've had that life where we thought that thousands of people were looking to us but what we needed was a life where we could look to ourselves and create a life of meaning and purpose and connection with others and most of all connection with that true self and a sense of ease with ourself. It doesn't come from affirmations that are empty of connection to the transcendent or just imagining a better life that comes from rewriting our own narrative so that we can look for ways to contribute and to connect and to be at ease with ourselves or with other people and with God or with the universe. That's the type of life that works. It's good to hear from you Jennifer. So there's this whole grief counseling industry which is actually usually negative right after a traumatic event like some police departments and they force you to come in and do it doing accounting right to get a deep brief on some traumatic event when you're much better off not participating in the grief industrial complex and instead writing a few weeks later on about what the event means to you, what you've learned from it, how you've grown from it, how it's contributed to your understanding of yourself and the universe and other people. So we can rewrite the narratives of our lives in ways that are profound and useful much better than getting a grief counseling debrief or repeating mind-numbing affirmations but to find the meaning in our life. I was asking me a question right now like 40 what are you contributing? Do you have something to offer from the books that you've been reading and your life experiences? I think it might possibly be a benefit to someone possibly some entertainment value can you contribute something 40 to the stream of life be it a live stream that to interest people entertains people and offers people something that's a benefit right that's the question that life is offering me right now and I'm about to turn off this live stream I'm just going to go for a beautiful walk and enjoy this beautiful day without needing to think oh what live stream should I do next I don't need to do any live stream I can just appreciate this beautiful day so that's what I mean I want to create blog posts and live streams that complement my life not detract from my life so that means there are fewer topics that I may tackle there are fewer things that I will say fewer incendiary directions that I'll head in there are there are guests that I won't bring on right so I give I give up the views and the super chats and the fame and the attention to instead have a life that is congruent yeah I want to get back to doing the pull-ups but I tweaked my elbow doing pull-ups or straining to do pull-ups so I'm putting the pull-ups on hold for a few days till my elbows return to feeling good you know maybe I'll get onto Muscle Beach and do some pull-ups fish oil brah it's fish oil I'm going to take care of my aching elbows tube the joints so I can do push-ups no problem and I can do some lightweights but gotta put a pause on the pull-ups right now there's no point in being in pain and exacerbating pain damn what these guys are doing is amazing so I'll use my activator the chiropractic tool the activator go to the textbook for the activator see how I can use it to alleviate my elbow my right elbow for some reason it flares up a lot not my left yeah Sikhs playing guitar and roller skates I gotta warn you though there's the occasional topless woman going by in roller skates so I don't want you to lose your emotional sobriety there's suddenly suddenly some breasts come your way I want to keep this a wholesome family friendly show I recommended showtime winning time the HBO series on on the 1979 1980 Lakers that was recommending it to a friend but I made a mistake like it's not it's not a show that you want to recommend to a to a sex addict so you never know which show will threaten somebody's sobriety or which show that people are just better off not seeing so they're like network TV shows and I'm far better off not seeing on the other hand I could watch Game of Thrones and it didn't didn't disturb my my sexual sobriety you never know what's going to trigger you not a not a big believer in triggers right to me triggers just mean you haven't done the work right when you do the work you do the 12-step work when you get aligned with your purpose then there's no place you can't go if you don't if you have a good reason for being there you didn't have to walk through life on eggshells they're worried that you're going to run into a trigger right they say that for every guy there's a there's a type of pornography that would just absolutely reduce him to you know a masturbating madman well if you stay free of pornography you're not going to run into the type of porn that drives you crazy if you have a purpose in your life then you're much more likely to put yourself in situations that are good for you