You Control Your Actions But Not Outcomes
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast with your host and the future leader of The Republic Of Wales, Sveldfjer. Now this might be the only podcast in the world where you actually have to reduce the speed instead of increasing it. However, what I wanna get over to you is that the past is gone. The future doesn't exist. So if you wanna make the most of your life, you've gotta make the most of these moments every single day.
Speaker 1:And this podcast is gonna help you live a healthier, more fulfilled life, hopefully, giving you some wisdom to take away every single day. So I'm gonna shut up now so you can get on with listening to the next episode. Hello, one dears. How are you doing on this fine Friday morning? Hopefully, you're listening this in the morning.
Speaker 1:It's Just Finished Book Club as always. Brilliant. We're chatting about the midnight library which is a book about a person basically wants to die and then she goes to this library and they're like, look, these are all the potential lives you could have had or have had right now and if there's a start and it blows my mind there's more possible chess moves than artichomes in atoms in the observable universe. Think of a nuts that is so think of a chessboard it is physically you you can see it, it's small, it's in front of you and that small thing has more potential moves than atoms in universe. What that resembles to me is the chessboard is your life, you make a move, life makes a move, ba ba bam and there's so many outcomes depending on the next move you make so you can completely change your life depending on the next move, does that make sense?
Speaker 1:So she talks about trying on different lives, she's all let me try this life on, try that life on. What she realizes is that the first few lives she tries on where she becomes a swimming Olympics swim star, she realizes that wasn't because she wanted to be one, it's because her father wanted her to be one. So she's doing that life to please him. The next one is when she becomes a pop singer or rock star. Thirty million likes on Instagram and she's touring the world in this life and everybody loves her.
Speaker 1:But she realizes that life was for her brother, it was his dream not hers. And then she did another life where she when she was in her current life she regretted not going Australia with a mate Izzy to go travelling. But then she realised actually when she got there that her friend Izzy had got into a car accident, passed away and she hated the life she had out there and it was terrible. So then she realised all of these lives I've been thinking about in her main life of just other people's dreams that she thought, Oh, what if I did that? But they weren't something she wanted to do anyway.
Speaker 1:And the main thing about the book is it talks about you can't just cherry pick a lifestyle, you can't just say I want the celebrity's fame but then you want solitude as well. You can't say you want to be a sports star but then want to have freedom to go out drinking and eating junk food in a Thursday night because you've got to be training and you don't want to criticism from playing after a bad game like you can't cherry pick lives like you can't cherry pick things from other people's bodies, can't say I'd love to have a body because if you think that way you have to now swap your entire life with yours and that's not something most people will do because your life is there's a lot of small things that you do like and that's the main thing for missus this girl had stayed in Bedford, she felt depressed, she wanted to die. She kept comparing her life to things she could have had in the past when she realised it wasn't good for her. So she went back into one life where she was with her boyfriend in a pub and she had this idyllic life in her head like, oh, I could be with this guy now in his dream pub in Oxford, like loving life.
Speaker 1:But then when she went into that life she realised actually in that life she wasn't happy at all. Even though on the outside it sounded like she was perfect, It wasn't. And some, you know, I don't wanna name names about the personal stuff, but I remember I even said on the call about this happened to her where she was living in a Guernsey and a perfect life and and sitting from the outside and walk beaches in the morning, la la la la. But actually, really, really didn't like that life and pushed through and changed got divorced. So things don't be as they seem is a big thing from this book.
Speaker 1:But also what we realized as well are all people talking about, there's a part in the book talking about when she was in the Antarctic. She was on a boat and she was in this vast bit of nature, she felt overwhelmed by how big the world is, but then she also felt important because she was doing this research at the same time. And then there was a part where a polar bear was gonna potentially kill her but in that moment she didn't want to die but because she felt she was in nature, she felt connected again, she felt connected again. When you're in the towns, you're disconnected because there's so many things going on, especially London. You get four more.
Speaker 1:You're in London, you're in the busiest city, one of busiest cities in the world surrounded by millions of people, bristleonias, you'll ever feel disconnected. But there's a connection you get when you're in nature that is different. You can be on your own and just be there with a tree, sort of plant, bit of soil, bit of an ant sitting in the rain, whatever. And you have a sense of connection, you feel alive. Like when I was walking up Snowden, I felt alive.
Speaker 1:But what do you feel alive sitting down on a desk all day? Is that what a human being is meant to do? It's not. You're meant to be out there in nature. And I think that's the lesson I definitely take from this book that all other people should take is, if you are feeling down, trapped, not feeling yourself, maybe you're not even feeling human, you need to start doing things like going out in nature, go and plant a tree, like those events, on dog shelter, like go to different places that's more alive with teaming with life and take it all in and I guarantee you'll notice a difference.
Speaker 1:Let me just go through a few quotes people picked out as well. So yeah so the part where they says there's no way to live that can immunize you from sadness so no matter the life you have, no matter the Olympic gold swimmer, the rock star, the living in Australia, living in a pub, in Oxford, all of lives comes with sadness all of them. So you can't think Afa did this wouldn't be sad, you probably would be sad in just a different way, maybe a worse way, maybe a better way. So she kind of realizes she can't why she living with regret. Her regret book gets smaller and smaller and smaller because she starts realizing those lives are not all where they're cracked up to be because we always think things are better than they are.
Speaker 1:Grass is always greener we think but actually it's a patch of weeds. So let's have a look here now over yeah, one decision away from a completely different life. Yeah. She changed her perspective on the relationship. Hindsight's powerful.
Speaker 1:So it's pointless though because unless you wanna go and learn some lessons, but, you know, doing it to to essentially, taught yourself is not good. You this is this is the best part of book thing. You can choose choices but not outcomes. Okay. So at the time, just remind yourself, you're always going to try your best.
Speaker 1:You're always trying your best. You're always going try and do a decision that's best for you in that moment. Sometimes those decisions are wrong in hindsight, but that's fine. There's no regrets. It's fine.
Speaker 1:So you gotta learn with the fact that you should be happy. You should try and make the best choices, rational choices, take a step back. You know, you can do all the stuff like don't make a decision when peak emotions, there's anger, sad, happy, take a step back. You can do stuff like ask for advice from people, but not just be pulled from every angle, but just being able to pull back, get some time on it. You can sleep on things.
Speaker 1:You can do all these small things to make sure you're doing the best choice. But then after you've done that choice, there's no point thinking like, oh, the outcome, it can't be tied, choice and outcome can't be tied together. Sometimes they are, you make a choice and you want the outcome, it happens. But more often than not, it doesn't. And Sarah J mentioned a really good podcast, can't remember the name of it now, about a guy who did a study on asking people.
Speaker 1:He essentially, from what I gathered, asked loads of people to think of, like, really bad thing happened in the past and would they, like, kind of delete it? Would they erase it from their life? So it never happened. 99% of people said no. They wouldn't erase that really bad thing that they're thinking about because it helped them be the person they are today.
Speaker 1:And in some examples, they're extreme like someone died and stuff, but then they became this person that fought for a huge change, helped a billion people, had this kind of change. So if you give things enough time, right, and understand you did the best choice you could, and actually give the meaning, a good meaning to things that happen, can do that. I think the phrase works here, love your fate, Like whatever happens to you, love it, it happens. Just don't fight against it, love it and move on. And I think that famous Thomas Edison story where he's got his invention lab and everybody, you know his sons come to him in the middle of the night, know quick quick quick there's a massive fire and he comes out and it's a lab because it's full of chemicals and stuff is absolutely ablaze and he just turns to his son and goes son go and get your mother, like what do you mean?
Speaker 1:So he goes this is gonna be the biggest fire she's ever seen. And he comes and just they just watch it, and he's accepted, accepts his fate. Like, you know, he did his best. Like, he's doing his work, and that something like that might have been a mistake from someone else, but it happened. He accepted it fast and then went on to recreate the lab, come up with new inventions and obviously still became this super famous guy.
Speaker 1:But the love of fate thing is like choice, fate permitting, my outcome happens, but if it doesn't, so be it. More next, it's easier said than done, but that study, the Eurasia 1, shows you that most people, ninety nine percent of people are okay with bad things happening as long as it's time given and they use it to improve themselves or use it as some kind of direction to improve their life. If you can do that bad stuff, Of course, there's things we wish never happened, of course. But if we think of a smaller scale, health and fitness, that weekend, that bad weekend last week, you you ate whatever. Look.
Speaker 1:Leave it go. Leave it go. You learn from it. But you know what? I've realized now that every weekend I go and drink.
Speaker 1:I do have takeaway. And then the next day, order delivery in the morning because I'm hungover all the time. Well, how's about I make the circumstance slightly different next time? How's about every time I instead of going to the weekends going, yeah, I'm not gonna go out and start lie to yourself. Why didn't you say, yeah, I'm probably gonna go out tonight.
Speaker 1:I'm probably gonna have a few drinks, but I'm not gonna have loads. And actually, the Sunday is the worst day calorie intake. Why? So why don't I on a Saturday morning, go to the shop, get loads of fruits, waters, low cal ice creams, pack that up ready for the next day. So when I do wake up, hangover to go eat stuff, I'll actually just have that stuff and I won't be eating four, five thousand calories in a day because I'm hungover.
Speaker 1:You start thinking things as a guy. Instead of fighting against it, you kind of look at the reality stuff. But let me see if there's few more quotes to go for you from the guys in the book club. Let's have a look. Lessons and mistakes.
Speaker 1:Yes. We can always learn from every situation. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yeah. Some career options to us seem impossible, but actually, if we want to do something, what's stopping us, the fear mostly. I think you can try on a different life. Think of a different life.
Speaker 1:Try it. If you can't change, of course you can. Okay? You can. Think of you saying I can't change my life now.
Speaker 1:Well, can people have done that like you're in control. You are in control, you can decide to change Jim Rohn will say all the time, you can change direction, you can change, you're not a tree, you're not stuck in one place. You can move, you've got free will essentially to do stuff, you can do it, it's just you think you can't. But there's always a way. There's so many stories, biographies, history lessons of people who have done absolutely remarkable stuff from God knows the pits of death and doom and they managed to turn things around and done it when actually when you think back to their situation think how did they think they could do that in that situation they just thought well there must be a way, there must be, do you know I mean?
Speaker 1:That's how you need to look at things, there must be a way, if there's a will there's a way that's what they say. Let's have a look. And then, yeah, I think yeah. That's it, guys. I think that's hopefully, would be insightful.
Speaker 1:It is called the midnight library by Matt Haig. Definitely worth a listen. I think you get a lot from it. It's a nice read. It's a nice listen as well, actually.
Speaker 1:So I think, yeah, give it a go. Hopefully, that was a bit of a nice advice note about general life today, but enjoy your Friday. Enjoy your weekend. And as always, back on Monday, and the doors will be opening to our five week strong challenge on Monday. So if you wanna get stronger in body, stronger mind, stronger soul in five weeks, going into Christmas, learning all about the strength training, how to why plans work, why we do this, why we do that, actually learning from the basics from, a master of strength training, you'll be ahead of 95% of people in terms of, strength training and gains.
Speaker 1:So definitely if you wanna just have a build some muscle to get strength, this challenge is 100% for you. So please have a look out and don't miss it because I think this is going to be our best challenge yet. See you Monday, Adios. And that is it for today's episode so hopefully you took something away from it if you didn't here's what you need to take away stop wasting time on social media. Stop wasting time gossiping.
Speaker 1:You've only got a day to live. Today's the only day you ever have. So if there's anything to take away from this podcast, even if you can't understand the word I say, even if you didn't resonate with the wisdom I try to deliver, this is a reminder of you daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life.
Speaker 1:So enjoy your
Speaker 2:day and hopefully I'll see you
Speaker 1:back tomorrow. Your daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life. So enjoy your
Speaker 2:day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow.
