I spend a lot of time thinking about the meaning of life. I have done it a lot more over the last 10 years.
Like everyone else, I have had my own fair share of ups and downs. (I’m at spin #50 around the sun)
- Losing my older brother – very unexpected
- Losing my father – expected
- Unplanned career breaks
- Unplanned relationship difficulty
- Losing my home
- Rental evictions and chaos of moving
- Illness in the family
- Feeling very uncertain about career and purpose
Writing this post today, feels like the right moment to “come out” and start communicating more about all of these things.
This post is partly inspired by one of my favorite authors on life: Dan Koe. I’m writing this while simultaneously reading “Niche Down is Terrible advice for smart people”
Gratefulness
This was an unexpected lesson learned today (June 24th) and its inspiring me to get back on the prayer mat (I’m Muslim) and pay my dues.
Earlier today, I was on Rumble watching THOTH’s PROPHECY read from the Hermetic Texts by Graham Hancock. Its an inspiring video and really makes you think deeply about life.
Watching the Thoth video activated one of the items on my to do list – find a new apartment for mom and me. By the way I built a productivity tool to track my to dos. Check it out.
So I went to craigslist and started poking around for suitable rentals and quickly found one.
I sent the property owner an email and a question:
Is this rental being rented out through a private owner, or a management company?
Its an important question in my case because I intend to have my mom move in with me. Since mom is a Senior, I want to minimize the chances that I’m going to get evicted. I have already been through that once earlier this year and its never a fun experience.
The last time my wife, mom and I had to leave the house we were renting (Feb this year), we had to put mom into an independent living facility. Its super nice, but not the ideal scenario for mom and me now.
My text messages with the owner were going well initially, but for reasons I can’t explain that don’t need an explanation (god was at work), the conversation quickly devolved into a “whataboutism” cage match.
The text messages went something like this (unimportant parts deleted):
Me: Hi. I sent you an email already about this unit. Just wanted to know if you are a private landlord or management company?
Owner: I’m a private owner. Why does it matter?
Me: I had some bad experiences in the past, and since mom is with me, I need to make sure I’m in a stable rental so that I’m not quickly evicted.
Owner: You shouldn’t put your bad experiences about past landlords on me.
She has a point about that. It had me thinking that I’m possibly in down funk right now.
Fine. Lets go on.
Owner: You won’t get anywhere with that negativity.
Now I’m thinking.. what? haha.. WTF? I didn’t even say something negative.. did I?
Owner: I’m an awesome landlord and if I need to use the property, I would give you fair notice. I have multiple properties, so I have no need to make it a short term rental.
Never once (so far) had she acknowledged my situation or what I was looking for. If someone isn’t a good match, fair enough.
Let it be and move on right?
That’s what I would be thinking at least.
Me: OK, thanks for the info. I think this isn’t the right match. Thanks.
Owner: You shouldn’t be so negative. It won’t get you anywhere.
Me: Perhaps. You know nothing of the journey people go through. I will definitely pass now. Thanks.
Owner: I went through surgery and radiation. I’m still positive. You are definitely not the right person for me! I refuse to be around negative people!
Me: OK. Thanks! Good luck!
That was about it.
The interaction had me thinking multiple things:
- Am I depressed right now? Is that coming off in my tone?
- Am I really being an insensitive dick to this person?
- Did I bring past suffering into this conversation?
- Maybe I could have been nicer.
- This lady got some issues going on she needs to work through.
- I am not what you think I am. You are what you think I am.
- God is sending me a message to be more grateful.
There is a lot going on there.
The last one is important though.
A message from God:
As bad as your life right now, it could always be worse.
This is important.
Writing down or thinking about all the things you are grateful about is so important – no matter what stage of life you are in.
In fact, its one of the key reasons I built a productivity app because keeping track of all you have done is so important for good mental health.
When the owner of the property replied back telling me what she was going through, I almost felt like I got a little slap in the face with this lesson and that God was the one doing the slapping.
Not a hard slap, but definitely a sting.
I got the message.
Life is hard.
Life will be difficult.
But it could be worse.
Message Received.
(image is of a baby showing the 7 chakras of Hinduism from the THOTH video)