Recovery Radio KMP300. It's somewhere right in the middle. But here we are. You and me. And I am glad for that. And I am grateful. I have no desire to drink today. And I do have a piping hot cup of French roast coffee from Trader Joe's mixed with some Don Francisco's hazelnut. It is absolutely delicious. One of my favorite sentences in the big book is on page 133. Paraphrasing slightly, but it does say to avoid the deliberate manufacturer of misery.
I have discovered a way to manufacture misery and I wanted to share it with you. I was really excellent at doing this and did this for a really long time. And here's how you do it. Don't do anything. Except think a lot about you. Analyze the shit out of everything. Think about everything. Think about whether or not it's selfish. whether or not God is in it, whether or not it's God's will, whether or not it's not God's will, whether or not it's some test.
Analyze how you feel from moment to moment, how each thing defines you or doesn't define you in every single moment. Put a thermometer in your mouth. Take your emotional temperature constantly. How do I feel now? What about now? What about now? Am I thinking of others now? How about now? Is the thought of thinking of others helping me think of others? Is this God's will? Is that God's will? Is this thought God's will? I drop my
car keys. Is that God's will? Am I supposed to be 3 seconds later to this event? Is this a test? What's God trying to show me? I have gas. What's God trying to show me? I have an itch. What's God trying to show me? What does this mean? What does that mean? You know what I should do? You know how I should feel. You know what I should be thinking? You know what I shouldn't do? You know what I shouldn't be thinking? You know, I wish I was doing, you know, I wish I was somewhere else spiritually.
I should be further along. I'm failing. I suck. I'll never get this. I can't do this right. I'm a fraud. You know what I should do? You what I should have done. You know what I need to do? You know what I'm going to plan to do. I know I should do that, but I'm not going to. I know I should do that, but I tried and I failed. So, I suck. So, I'm a failure, so I shouldn't try. How am I doing? How am I doing now? What about now? How about now? Is this selfish? Is this God's will? What about this?
I'll stop right now because I've been doing it for a few minutes now, but I did that for years. And I manufactured plenty of misery as a result of that. And my life got really good. I don't know when it was. I don't remember exactly when it was, but things got really good.
When I was able to stop finally doing that, when I was able to stop analyzing everything I was doing, taking my emotional temperature, reading into everything, trying to figure out everything, the entire exercise of being in my head was not helpful. It is in the self-forgetting that one finds. In my experience, all of those thoughts are selfish. All of those thoughts are selfish because I'm thinking of me. It's that it's so simple. It's almost invisible. Think of someone else. There's billions
of people on the planet. There's people everywhere who are having totally different experiences than I am. We're having different mornings or afternoons or evenings and different trials and struggles and celebrations and there's I imagine it like it was a helmet that I was wearing was just I was just listening to my own station. What about me? How's this? What about now? What about now? What about now?
And I don't remember exactly when I was able to take that off and be present for someone else and think about someone else. Make a sentence or an event or a moment about someone else. Why it took years for me to be able to do that? to actually celebrate someone else took years. I could fake celebrate other people pretty good. But it took a lot of time for me be to be able to make a moment about somebody other than me.
It just took a long time for me to be able to make a moment about somebody other than me. to ask somebody how they're doing with no plan of what I'm going to say, of no self-seeking motive in it, with no like hoping I hear this or that or this is how I'm going to respond if this or they're probably thinking this with none of that. Just how are you? and then practicing listening. I mean, it took me
a long time to be able to do that. When I talk about it now, it sounds crazy, but I couldn't make a moment about somebody else. I couldn't I couldn't do it cuz I'd be like, should I make this moment about them? Am I making this moment about them right now? right now is what I'm doing. Am I making it about them or I'm making it about me? I don't think I'm making it about me cuz I'm thinking of them. I'm thinking of them, right? I'm not thinking about me. Just all of that. Shut up. All of that.
Am I making it about them now? How about now? How cool is it that I'm making making it about them? That's so cool. That's so humble of me. I'm so cool to be able to make it about them. I think I'm making it about them right now. Just all of that exhausting mental masturbation that went on for years and years and the end result of all that misery. Also, I noticed that nobody cares. All these things I would think about, nobody cares. Nobody gives a shit. It doesn't matter.
The world was not like the world is not going to fall apart without me. It was fine before I got here. It'll be fine when I'm gone. It's not like it's hanging on by a thread and needs my two cents. It needs my analytical, you know, study of how I'm doing at this moment. It's like it doesn't I can't find a place in the universe where that means anything. But I spent years in this state of mind. But I just have never been able to discover any valuable place to put all that. It doesn't matter.
I used to play music for a living and one time I was at a show. We're about to perform standing on the street with some fans and one of the fans said, "I missed your show, you know, the other day. How was it?" And I was like, "Well, I think it was out of tune. I think the first song was and he he said, "I don't give a shit about that. How was the vibe?" And that's kind of a perfect little microcosm for like what matters all around. Like it doesn't matter all these things I'm
thinking. What is what am I putting out there? What is it like to be around me? Is it exhausting? Is it frustrating? Do I make people walk on eggshells? Do I shut people down? Do I ever celebrate anybody else? Do I ever make a big deal out of anyone but me? And I've talked about this plenty, but it's like having gone to a lot of wakes and celebration of lives and funerals, I noticed that this is all people talk
about. They don't talk about really anything other than how they felt around the person, how the person made them feel. But for years, I tried to sort all kinds of stuff out that just doesn't mean anything. I know. But it does mean something if I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. If I think about it for long enough, maybe I'll figure out just all of that. Just shut up. Not you, me.
So, if you want to deliberately manufacture some misery, I suggest get in your head and stay there as much as you can. No matter what's going on around you all throughout the day, stay in your head and check out the Black Rhino's International Big Book Study. You can look it up. They have an Instagram page. And if anybody needs to hear it, everything is okay. I got to go do a photo shoot for PFB. It's actually for PFB Italia. It's like an Italian. It's like a version of Italian Vogue.
It's like perfect fucking body.