A couple of weeks ago, I guess it's been now over the Thanksgiving break, I was dying to watch Christmas movies. I always feel like I wait too long to start celebrating Christmas, and then it's gone. So I was like, okay, I'm going to get a jump start on it this year. And two of my favorite movies, The Santa Claus and Home Alone. They're both Disney movies. So I subscribed to Disney Plus and watched the movies. And then I was looking for something else to watch. And I came across the movie Cruella, and I wanted to see it a while ago, but I didn't want to pay $20 to watch it. So I figured since it was included in the subscription that I would check it out.
Estella & Cruella
And it was a really interesting movie to me because I resonated so much with the main character. Her name is Estella to begin with, and then she turns into, like, her alter ego is Cruella. It was just really interesting to watch her character develop because she went through some horrible things in her life, and she was kind of on her own and forced to figure things out by herself. And there was one point in the movie where she had already kind of established this alter ego as Cruella. And I think it was her friends were saying to her like, we don't like Cruella. We don't like it when you act that way. You turn into this terrible person when you act that way, and she's like, Well, Estella is this nice, sweet girl who never gets anything done. But Cruella gets things done. And that's why I like her.
And that makes so much sense to me because I feel like I have the same issues in my life. I have this Estelle part of my personality that's, like, calm and sweet and patient and just very go with the flow. Don't rock the boat, just go along with what everybody else wants. But then there's like, the Cruella part that's, like, I'm done with your BS. I'm not taking this anymore. I deserve better. Let's burn down the house as we leave. Seriously, I can't take it anymore.
I noticed it again last week because I had another issue with my landlord. This seems to be a popular problem with me, and I don't know exactly what the whole thing is. Something else for me to focus on. I think that it's related to this whole thing, though. That's like, it's this go along make everybody else happy, don't rock the boat, don't cause a big thing. And then there comes a point where it's just like, this is all too much. I can't take this anymore. And so then Cruella comes out.
The problem that I have with my landlord now is I have severe asthma. And I told him that when I moved in, there's actually a part of the lease that I signed when I moved that's an addition to the lease that says you cannot smoke inside the building. You can't smoke within 25ft of the property. I was happy to sign that because one of the things that causes asthma attacks for me is cigarette smoke. So anybody who's smoking can cause me to have a life-threatening asthma attack where I can die within five to ten minutes. And there may be something that can be done to stop it. And there might not. So obviously, this is a big problem for me, right? I don't want to have to deal with that. I don't want to have to pay to deal with that. Most of all, I don't really want to die.
So recently, I've been in the same apartment for, like, a year and a half, and in the past five to six months, there's been somebody who's moved into the building who smokes. I've seen them smoking. I see them smoking every day when I go outside. They were smoking, like, on the steps outside of the apartment, and I told them every time I saw them, I was like, you can't smoke here. Like, this is not okay. I could die. And they're very flippant about it, like, oh, I'll just go over there. It's like, no, it's 25ft of the property. So that means that you can't smoke in the parking lot. You can't smoke outside. You need to be 25ft away from the property line to smoke.
So of course, I raised the concern with my landlord, and he was like, oh, no problem. I'll fix it. I'll fix it. And it happened again. And I told him again, it happened again. And I told him again, and every time he's like, oh, I fixed it. It's fine. I'm like, it's not fine. They're smoking in their cars every single day. Every time I go outside, I see them sitting out there smoking. And what happens is when you smoke, you smell like smoke. Your clothes smell like smoke. Your apartment smells like smoke. Even if you're not smoking in there, everything still smells like smoke. So you get out of your car and you go walking through the apartment building. It smells like smoke.
Now, in general, if I was just not interested in smelling like smoke, it would be annoying. But whatever. But that's not the case for me. It's not just annoying. I could die from that. I could die within, like, ten minutes. Not like, long term how most people will die from smoking. It's like, I could literally die within ten minutes of that. This is a massive problem. So I felt like in order to get the point across because obviously, I've been nice, right? I've been nice multiple times and nobody seems to be understanding the problem.
So last week, when it happened again, I was like, okay, listen, I'm getting a lawyer, and I'm going to get everybody else in this building who's pissed off about this to have this same lawyer, and we're all going to leave because you have violated the leases. You violated the state laws of Massachusetts that says that you can't smoke. This is a massive problem, and you are going to fix it, or I'm going to burn down the place. Not, like, literally burn it down, but, like, I'm getting a lawyer and I'm going to fight and it's going to be a big thing.
And you can see, like, I could feel myself getting angry, right? I can see the change. And I didn't really notice it until, like, this past week, as it was happening, I was like, man, I'm getting really nasty. And it was almost like this detachment type of thing, like, I was watching myself get really nasty, and I'm kind of sitting there in awe going, Man, this is like a huge thing, and it happened really fast. It happened without me even realizing what was going on. It was a massive thing. Obviously, it's something that I care about because, like I said, I don't want to die. But I was thinking about Estella and Cruella. It's like, Estella is super nice, but Cruella gets things done that's kind of how it goes, right?
We are different people at different points in our life
I've been listening to Jordan Peterson, and he was talking about how we are different people at different points in our life. He says that life is like this terrible tragedy, like it starts off being unfair. And every single day that you're alive, there are horrible, terrible things that happen to you. The fact that we're even alive at the age that we are in the time that we are is beyond a miracle. The fact that you were created is a miracle. The fact that your mom didn't have an abortion is a miracle. How many babies die just by being aborted? So the fact that you're even here today is beyond a miracle, especially having to deal with all the things that we deal with nowadays having to deal with actual physical threats.
If you have asthma, like I do, you could be walking through the day wondering if when you go to Target, you're going to have a massive asthma attack and die. Something else that I do - there are these videos on YouTube that are just insane. People driving, and they have, like, these dash cameras in their car. And so they catch all of these accidents and videos of people just making really stupid mistakes while they're driving, running red lights and causing, like a six-car accident just from something so simple. But the fact that you drive down the street every single day and you don't die in an accident that's caused by a drunk driver or somebody not paying attention or somebody just being impatient and running a red light. I mean, that's a miracle in itself.
I used to think that driving really wasn't that dangerous. And then I moved to Boston, and there are so many people in such a small space, and it's like this whole different attitude when you're in the car that every person is fighting for themselves and you get really aggressive because everybody else is aggressive. But watching those videos has helped me to not be so aggressive because I think you understand more of the threat that you could die. And I think part of the older that you get, the more you see stuff like that, you watch those things happen to your friends and other people that you know, and it's like, I don't want to be in that situation. It's not that important. I can wait through a red light. It's totally fine.
So the point is you are a different person at different points in your life, right? Who are you on your best day? It's probably not the same person that you are on your worst day. Who are you when you haven't eaten or when you feel trapped? Who are you when you feel accomplished, when you feel gorgeous, when you feel stupid, when you feel threatened?
I'm actually a lot worse person when I feel stupid than when I feel threatened. Like I feel threatened about my apartment. The story that I just told you about my apartment, I feel threatened because I feel like my life could be in danger, but I tend to be a lot more aggressive and a lot more like Cruella when I feel stupid or when I feel like somebody is trying to make me feel stupid, it comes out a lot worse. So I know that for me, one of the worst things that I can be made to feel is stupid.
Moral inventory
Another thing that I've been working on recently that's definitely related to all of this. I've been working on a moral inventory, which is being super honest with yourself about all kinds of different things, really just digging into who you are as a person, who you are at the best and the worst points in your life and trying to explore why you act that way. Something else that Jordan Peterson was talking about is being really honest with yourself. When I was working on this inventory when I was starting, I bought this book that's like a book full of questions, and I had the book for, I don't know, a week or two before I actually started reading it because it was super intimidating. I feel like I'm pretty honest with myself, but I didn't really want to know the depth of that, right? I was okay with just being like, Well, I'm kind of honest. I'm like, honest enough, and that's totally fine. I didn't want to dive into the parts of myself that I know needed to change. I didn't want to dive into the, hey, why does Cruella come out? Can we fix that? But I kind of did, because that's why I bought the book, right? Because it's like, okay, I want to understand myself better. I want to fix all these problems that I've been struggling with for years and years and really, decades now. I want to be a better person. I want to accomplish different things in my life. And I feel like I have to fully understand myself before I can do that.
But it was very intimidating to actually say, okay, I'm going to be honest with myself. I'm going to be fully honest even if it's something that I don't like, even if it's something that I don't want to admit, even if it's something that I don't want other people to know.
Fixing the world's problems
We talk a lot nowadays about fixing the world's problems, right? Everybody seems to be focused on fixing the world's problems. There are so many people who talk about social justice and equality. There are people who talk about climate change. There are people who talk about the virus that's going around and how we're all in this together, and we all need to do our part. But nobody wants to talk about personal responsibility, right? Nobody wants to talk about the problems that you have in your house. Nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to even admit that we all have personal problems. My question is, how can you fix the world if you can't fix yourself? How can you go and give other people advice if you haven't fixed your own problems?
And I think that's where I mean, I've struggled a lot with that because I've been trying to build my podcast and my blog into a business for a long time. And a lot of people, especially Evan Carmichael, who I have a lot of respect for him. Well, one of the things that he says is that when you're starting to build a business, that you should start coaching other people, and for me, I don't even feel like I'm qualified to coach other people. I feel like if I haven't solved my own problems, how can I fix other people's problems?
When I started my blog and this podcast, I wanted to share my problems with other people. I wanted to share the solutions that I had come up with. It was more of a hey, here's what I found. I think this could help you as well. And I've never really thought of myself as the type of person who's, like, okay, here's everything that you need to do. It's more of an approach for me that's, like, I'm sharing this with you because this is what helps me, and I'm still working on it. So, hey, stay tuned or keep coming back, because the answer that I gave you may only be half of the answer, and I just don't know the other half of the answer yet, but I'm working on it. I'm working on it so much.
I feel like personal responsibility is a huge part of that, because I know that that's been a huge part of the solution for me. There's a quote from Carl Young that I like a lot who is his work was the basis for the Myers Briggs type indicator personality test. And he says, “if you take a personal problem seriously enough, you'll simultaneously solve a social problem.”
So if you really want to fix the problems of the world, if you really, really want to fix climate change and equality and all of these things, then you should be focused on fixing yourself first, because if you could fix yourself, then that will lift society as well. That will lift the problems around you as well.
One of the biggest things that helps, one of the biggest things that has helped me. And one of the reasons that I've been listening to Jordan Peterson so much is because he says the things that I've already done, and I know that they help. He said that you're morally obligated to do things other than that which you like. I shared this on Instagram this past week. There were quite a few people who were like, That's not true. That doesn't work. There are so many things that make you uncomfortable, and they don't help you at all. I disagree. I disagree a lot, and I'll give you a really good example.
When I was 21, I think when I was in high school actually is where it started. I was working for a Church Ministry, and I met this guy who was a Minister for a Ministry or a nonprofit organization in England. And he said that they were looking for people to work at the Ministry, and he wondered if I might be interested. And first of all, he was very nice looking, and he had an English accent. And I was like, yes, I'll do anything that you want me to do, of course. Plus, at that age, the thought of going to a different country was, like, super exciting. But it was also incredibly terrifying for me because I was the type of person who had always been in my parent's house. And I didn't even, like going on sleepovers to other people's houses.
So the fact that, I mean, even the idea of going to a different state or across the United States was a big idea. But then going to a whole different country was, like, overwhelming. But it was exciting as well. So it took us almost a whole year. We fought with the government about getting a visa and getting a work visa was pretty difficult, especially because I didn't have a bachelor's degree yet. And so we finally decided that I could come to England on a tourist visa for three months. And it was like, you didn't need an actual visa. They would just let you into the country for three months. I was like, okay, well, I'll do that. So I remember when I was leaving. My parents were like, almost at the point of tears, and my parents are never like that. And I just kept going back and forth, like, I don't know if this is the right thing to do. And I kind of had this feeling that I wasn't coming back in three months because I was really hoping, like, I had this idea that I was going to be a pastor's wife. And here I had found a guy who was pretty much a pastor. And I was like, what if this is the guy? I just had this feeling that this was the guy and this is what I was supposed to do.
So it was really pretty hard telling my parents goodbye because I really thought that that was it like, I was going to leave. And it might be years before I came back. But I eventually got on the plane, and that was the first time that I had ever been on a plane by myself. That was the first time that I had ever done anything big like that by myself. And taking on that type of responsibility. I grew up like, super quick. There were so many things that were like, you're a long ways away from home, and you're just going to have to figure this out. There's nobody that you can call. I barely had the ability to call my parents because it was expensive.
And the people that I was staying with, they couldn't afford me making these long-distance phone calls all the time. And I only had a limited amount of money. So I'm like, oh, I have to learn how to budget my money. Now, this is weird. I've never done that before. I mean, there was just so much like, I'm the one who has to be concerned with how safe I am. I need to know, how do you call, like, nine one one. So I'm asking these simple questions and they're like, what do you mean, nine one one. And then the police, the fire department, and they're like, oh, that's not nine one one. That's 999. And I'm like, what, you don't even have nine one one. I'm like, Well, yeah, we do. But it's and I'm like, great. Well, I'm glad that I asked because I would have been calling nine one one and got nothing. And obviously, it's different when you're in a foreign country because there are little differences.
But in England, some of those little differences were, like, massive differences, even when I went into a restaurant and they asked me what I wanted to drink. And I said, I want water and this server looked at me and she's like, what? And I'm like, I want water. You don't have water. And she's like, what the guy that I was with, he was like, no, you want water? And she's like, oh, okay. Yeah, we have that. And I'm like, what he's like, you don't even know how to stay water. Wow. I guess they don't. This is shocking.
But I ended up staying six months, and I learned so much, so much about responsibility, so much about my worldview and how other people have different worldviews, how they have different experiences. They have different ideas and thoughts about history. And when I got home, I was dying to get home. First of all, because it was like, the fall of 2008, which, if you remember, felt like the world was coming to an end. I was in England when I think it was HSBC, one of the biggest banks in England, filed for bankruptcy, and nobody knew what was really going on. And there was kind of this fear that the world was going to collapse.
Obviously, the economy collapsed, but nobody really knew what that meant. And so when I heard that the bank filed bankruptcy, I'm like, how did the bank file bankruptcy? First of all? And secondly, what is that going to do to, like, airplanes? Am I not going to be able to go home? And I ended up going home two weeks early because I was terrified of, like, what if I can't go home? So there was all this fear and I ended up getting home, and I felt so much better just being at home.
But then I started thinking about, OK, what's next? Because, like I said, I kind of had this idea in my head that I wasn't coming home. And then obviously the guy wasn't that interested in me. And I think it was really like, his mom wasn't that interested in me. She didn't like me. So it wasn't okay for him to go out with me. And I was like, okay, fine. Whatever. So I get home. And then I start thinking about what I really want to do with my life. And that was the fall of 2008. So I spent 2009 thinking and planning and scheming.
And what I really wanted to do even before I went to England, what I really wanted to do was move to North Carolina, which was 1000 miles away from where I grew up. I wanted to move there because I wanted to be involved in racing. But prior to me going to England, I had been terrified to move away from my family. I didn't think that I could handle the responsibility. I didn't think that I wasn't brave enough. I didn't have any confidence. And so I didn't even think I could survive. But after I came home from England, that was like this burst of confidence that I needed. And every time there was something that I really wanted to do that I was scared I wouldn't be able to do it. I would look back and say, wait a minute. I went to England all by myself. And, yeah, I stayed with people who were there. But there was so much that I did by myself. I spent four days in London all by myself. I'd never been to a big city before. I'd never been to New York City. I hadn't been to Washington, DC at that point. Never been to Boston. The biggest city that I had been to was Kansas City, and I had never been there by myself. So I was like, I've done this really big, amazing thing that I didn't think was possible.
So obviously, I can do anything else because I had taken that responsibility and taken the chance and went to England. Then I was like, you know what? I can move to North Carolina. I can do this by myself. And my parents came at me with all of this. What are you going to do if what are you going to do if you get a flat tire? What are you going to do if somebody breaks into your house and it's always these negative things, right? What are you going to do if you fall down and break your leg? What are you going to do if my mom had this endless stream of things and it was always these really negative things?
And at first I thought, I need to have an answer for exactly what I'm going to do. But once I came home from England, I was like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to figure it out. What are you going to do if you have a flat tire? Well, you're going to call dad and he's going to come and fix it. But what if he's not available? Then what are you going to do? You know what I do now? There's an extra part of your car insurance that you can buy. That's called roadside assistance. And yes, you have to pay. I think there's a small fee that you have to pay, but somebody will come. All you have to do is call them, and somebody will come and change this higher for you. I know it's like this shocking revolutionary thing that's like, hey, you don't actually need to know how to change a tire. I mean, it would be nice if you do know how to do it. But you also have to consider that who put the tire on your car right now? You may not be able to get the lug nuts unscrewed, even if you know how to change it higher without, like, destroying your car. You may not be strong enough to get the leg nuts unscrewed. So then what?
I actually had a car when I was in North Carolina. I think I was in North Carolina. No, maybe it's before I moved to North Carolina. But I had this SUV that I bought it was a Toyota Rav four, and it was kind of a weird story. I bought it when I was in Oklahoma City, like, for the weekend, and I went to put new tires on it like, a year later, and they're like, we need the key to the leg nuts. And I'm like, what do you mean, leg nuts have keys. And he's like, yeah, one of your lug nuts on each tire has, like, this locking key. It's like a locking lug nut. And you have to have a special key to get it off. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. If it's not in the car, I don't have it. And they're like, oh, well, that's a problem, because we can't get the tires off of your car unless you have the specific key. And I'm like, Well, great. How do I get the key? Thankfully, it was kind of a process, but Thankfully, I had a warranty on my car, and they were able to order me one from Toyota. But it took, like, two weeks to get it.
But there are so many situations like that that are like, I have no idea how I'm going to handle that. And you don't really know until you get into that situation. But all you really need to know is that you can figure it out. Everything in life is figure out a whole, even if it feels impossible. I like, there's way too much there everything is figure-outable, everything.
I think the main point that I'm trying to make here is that so much changed for me when I started taking responsibility, when I started realizing that once you can conquer some of your fears, then so much else in the world opens up for you. So because I went to England, then I felt like I was confident enough to move to North Carolina, and I was there for a year. And then I ended up having to move home because of financial reasons. But I had been there for a year, and I had figured it out. And I was like, you know what? I can do this. I can make this work. I think I just gave up too soon. And so a year later, I went back, and I was there for six years. And again, I ended up having to go back home because of financial reasons.
But every time I did that, even though there were times that felt like failures, it was like I figured out everything else out, every other thing that I came up against, which there were flat tires. Thankfully, nobody ever broke into my house. But there were other things that I had to tackle. I moved into a new house and they wanted a $500 deposit to turn on the utilities. And I was like, Well, nobody told me that was going to happen. But you know what? After that, I knew that that was a possibility. And so I asked more questions when I moved. You know, there's all sorts of stuff that you don't learn until you take on the responsibility. So we started off talking about, who are you at different points of your life, right. And I know if you're anything like me, you have this vision in your head of this person that you want to be, this person that you think that you can be.
And that's part of why I started doing this moral inventory because I want to be able to get there. I want to be able to improve as a person and to do more in my life than what I'm doing right now. And I know that only happens if I actually take action. And if I start working through the dark parts of my personality, if I confront the things that I'm trying to hide from, I'm really good at hiding from problems.
There's a lot of things that I feel like if I just ignore them, they'll go away. Or maybe they're not that big. Maybe I'm just making a big deal out of them. Maybe if I just put them off for long enough, I'll come up with a better solution. A good example is I want to lose weight and I know how to lose weight. I know so much about nutrition. It's just that putting it into practice is difficult, and it's just so much easier to think about doing it later. I think about it every single day. It haunts me constantly. It holds me back from doing a lot of other things, and it's just so much easier to stay in planning mode. It's so much easier to say I'll get to it next week, next month, next year, I'll get to it. I'll get around to it. It's a lot more difficult to say. I need to fix this right now. Today, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year today.
And nowadays it's so easy to blame other people, right? You blame your parents for genetics. You blame the food for the ingredients. You blame the government for not banning certain foods. You blame restaurants for giving you too much food in a portion. We're really good at blaming other people, and I'm not going to lie. I've done the same thing. I'm great at blaming other people, too. I like these documentaries on TV. There's one that I watched. I believe it's on Netflix, but it might be on Amazon Prime. It's called Sugar Coated. So if you haven't watched it, you definitely should. Basically, what they said is that they have evidence that the government is hiding that sugar is bad for you the same way that the government hid that nicotine was bad for you. The government knew that cigarettes killed people 50 years before they started telling people that. And basically, they're doing the same thing with sugar. They know that it kills people, but they're hiding that because it's a profitable business for them, right? They want to make money, and so they don't tell people.
It's easy to blame other people. But it's a lot more difficult to say this is my responsibility. I'm the one who would rather watch TV than go outside. I'm the one who would rather watch documentaries, not getting healthy than actually clean up my diet and start exercising. I'm the one who would rather say I have asthma, and it's really difficult for me to go exercise than actually going to go exercise. It's difficult, but it's the truth. And until you start telling yourself the truth, you're going to stay exactly where you are, right? You're going to stay in the darkness. There was another quote that I was looking for. Oh, it's this one. It says the amount of light that you experience in your life is directly related to the amount of darkness that you're willing to confront. You can't get to the good things if you won't confront the darkness. I like that a lot, too, because I think as much as we are fascinated with the darkness, we do everything that we can to avoid it right?
We want peace and harmony. We want to be comfortable. We spend most of our lives trying to figure out how to be comfortable. But you don't get to the growth in your life. You don't get to the growth in your personality. You don't get to the deep understanding of who you are without looking at the darkness. A lot of the things that we suffer with that we struggle with could be fixed just by doing things that make you uncomfortable. And that goes back to the quote that I shared on Instagram, the Jordan Peterson quote that says you're morally obligated to do things other than that which you like. You're morally obligated because that is where the growth comes from. You're morally obligated to do things that make you uncomfortable because that is where you find the answers to the questions that you're looking for. That's where the meaning in life comes from. That's where the answers to your purpose in life come from. They don't come from peace and happiness. They don't come from comfort and easy, just like gliding through life. They come from the things that make you uncomfortable. They come from the challenges they come from facing your fears and from conquering the things that you're not really sure that you could do.
How many people run away from their fears rather than confronting them? A lot of people make up these long, complicated excuses about why they can't do the things that they want to do. I talk to people quite frequently who say, well, if I would only have had more courage, I could have been a doctor. But my parents wanted me to sell insurance, so that's what I chose to do. And I'm just stuck here. You're not really stuck there, though, right? And it doesn't matter how old you are. You can change careers when you're 70 years old, you can change careers anytime that you want to. You can start doing the things that you want to do. A lot of people tell me, too, that I would do something that makes me happy. I would be a writer instead of a doctor or an accountant. But I can't because my parents told me that I can't.
My parents told me not to go to England. My parents told me not to move to North Carolina twice. My parents told me not to move to Boston. I did the things that my parents told me not to do. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't have any respect for my parents because I do. I have a lot of respect for them. But I know that their truth is not my truth. I know that the choices that they have made in their lives are not the choices that I would make. So why am I letting them dictate how my life would be? And initially, they weren't happy. I mean, they weren't nasty to me, but they made their displeasure known, and it was uncomfortable. It was insanely uncomfortable for me because I was the good little girl who did everything that I was supposed to do. If they told me to do something, I did it. If they told me not to do something, I wouldn't go near it. And then all of a sudden, they're telling me not to do something, and I'm like, I understand your point of view, but I feel like this is something that I have to do. And it was like they were kind of unsure how to act because that was different than what they had ever seen from me.
But later on, years later, in fact, they told me that they were proud of me for making the decisions that I made. So in the end, me making the decisions that I know I needed to make was the right thing for me to do. Me facing my fears, even the fear of making my parents unhappy, which was a huge fear for me. It was one of the best things that I've ever done in my life.
I feel like if you could teach yourself to face your fears, that you would get stronger and every fear that you conquer will build your confidence, and it will lead you to face a bigger fear and a bigger fear and a bigger fear. And a bigger fear. Just like me going to England gave me the courage to move to North Carolina, which gave me the courage to move to Boston. All of those things were significant points in my life. And every time I faced something new that was like, I don't know if I can do this. I thought back to wait a minute. I went to England, like I moved to North Carolina. I can do anything by myself.
You don't even know what the upper limit would be to those things because the more fear that you face, the more confident, the more stronger that you get. Can you imagine what your life would be like ten years from now if you didn't avoid the things that you were afraid of? If you didn't avoid the things that you know that you need to do, what would your life be like? I'm thinking about that a lot recently. I'm thinking about just like, what is next year going to be like if I actually face my fears, if I don't put off the things that I know that I need to do, what's going to be different.
I'm going to end with one more quote from Jordan Peterson. He says, “the meaning that sustains you in life is mostly found through responsibility. Through the voluntary adoption of responsibility. You're more than likely to find your fundamental strength.”
When you take on responsibility, you're going to find the things that make you strong. You're going to figure out where your courage is. You're going to find your strength. And more than any of that, you're going to find the meaning in your life. What is your life really about? If you stay in the easy and the happy and the peaceful place in your life where you're just gliding through life, there's no meaning there. The meaning comes from doing things that make you uncomfortable. So I want to challenge you this week to do something that makes you uncomfortable. What is it that you've been putting off? What is it that you know that you need to change? I'm working on my New Year's resolution because I have been for a few weeks now.
One of the things that I want to do is to do more YouTube videos. Somebody told me not too long ago you can't be an INFJ because you do videos all the time and INFJs don't like being on video. So therefore you're not an INFJ. And I thought that's the stupidest thing in the world. You have no idea how difficult it is for me to record a video like talk about facing your fears every single day. It's terrifying and horrifying. And I would record ten times more videos if I wasn't so scared to do it. And even though the response that I get from my YouTube channel and for my podcast is overwhelmingly positive, I'm still terrified to be on camera. I'm still terrified to sit here and talk and talk. And I wonder sometimes if it makes sense. I wonder if I pronounce words wrong or if I have these weird pauses or I hate that my face gets all red when I start talking. There's so many things that are just, like, so uncomfortable. So I have some more ideas for probably different YouTube channels because one of them was like this idea of how to fight through your fears, of starting a YouTube channel just by being an introvert. Another one is like exploring the area around where I live and making videos about different things, almost like finding good pizza. And there are a lot of, like, homemade donut places around here.
And then there's so many things to do around Boston, like Plymouth is a big thing. That's where the Pilgrims first landed in the New World, and then Salem, Massachusetts, is where the witch trials were, which is a big thing in October for Halloween.
But there are so many different things like that that I feel like if I challenge myself to make the videos, then one, I'll feel more comfortable making videos. And two, it'll give me a reason to get out of the house, which is something else that I need. So I have all of these ideas, and it's like a constant fighting through fear almost on a daily basis in order to accomplish all these things. So anyway, I want you to know that you're not alone. You're not alone in fighting your fears because I'm doing it, too, every single day. And when you're challenging yourself, you're not alone either, because I'm out here challenging myself every single day as well. And I'm sharing this information with you because it's helped me. And because I want to help you, too. And I know that when we face our fears, whether it's together or separately, we can be better people. We can live happier lives. We can have that meaning and purpose in our lives that we're all fighting for, that we all want so desperately.
So, yeah, I want to challenge you to do something that makes you uncomfortable this week and let me know how it goes. Let me know what happens. Let me know if you feel any differently. I would love to hear from you. You can send me an email. You can find me on Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. And believe me, you'll be hearing about my story, my struggle, and hopefully you'll see some really good videos, too here pretty soon.
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