(no music) #1198 - Looking Forward - Let Me Bore You To Sleep (24th September 2024) (2)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com, this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep, please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. My name is jasonnuland and my Facebook group is jasonnuland's boring group, it's a treasure trove of Facebook, I don't know, it's a group, you can join if you like. We've got 191 people, members now, I reckon I should reach 195 by Christmas.

What I thought I would do today is focus in on the future, let me talk about focusing on the future or maybe have a title, you do have a future or look forward to the future and I've been thinking about, I'm stuttering here, I think it's important, like really really important to have something to look forward to and I remember there was Milton Erickson who was kind of like the Bruce Lee of hypnosis, he was, if you were involved in hypnosis he is like the king of hypnosis kind of, there's others as well but he's like very famous.

And now we've got the ice cream van coming out between rain sessions, I don't know how well that picks up on the microphone, I can hear it really loud, let's stop now. So he had like three heart attacks and he realised after the third one, well that's not going to be what kills me, and he was 80 or something like that and when he passed away, which he eventually did, he had the next three years planned, he never stopped planning ahead, he always had something to get out of bed for, he always had something to look forward to and he'd gone through polio twice,

so he had polio when he was a kid and he had polio again or I don't know if it was actually polio but it was like a resurgence of it when he was probably in his fifties and he was told, it is quite a powerful story actually, he heard the doctor tell his parents, and I think he was about eight years old at this point, that he wouldn't survive till the next day.

So his parents didn't tell him but he heard the doctor say it to his parents and when his mum came into the bedroom to see him, he asked if she could move the bed, move his bed so he could see out of the window because he wanted to see the sunrise, because if he could see the sunrise he'd know that he'd survived, that's all he had to do was to reach sunrise and he'd know he'd survived the night and he was going to be okay, that was in his mind and he looked forward to the sunrise.

So they moved his bed, probably both of them, both his parents, and not only did he see the sunrise, he saw thousands of sunrises, I could even use my dad as a, his story as an example of being able to look forward and to not accept maybe what someone else might say, you know if anyone says I'll give up, then why are they saying that, sometimes it's our own voices that say it isn't it, why are we saying it?

So I guess I'm just talking about this, who knows why I'm talking about it, but my dad he got, he was in a serious car accident when he was in his 20s, so I wasn't, this might have been when I wasn't living with him, no it might have been before I was born, I can't, I'm not sure, but he was basically crushed between two lorries, he was in a mini, a lorry behind him stopped suddenly, he went into the back of the lorry and the lorry behind him went in the back of him,

so he was crushed basically and the doctor said he wouldn't survive it, he survived it, they told his parents, my nan told me all about this, the next thing they said well if he survives it he's never going to be able to walk again, what she did, they said if he walks again he won't be able to work, he'll be, you know what I mean, he'll just be damaged, maybe his brain or whatever, he won't be able to actually physically do much again, that didn't happen,

so and that was that determination and both my nan and my grandad, my grandad and my nan, my nan and grandad they were very positive about him recovering, my dad had been in a war, my grandad had been in a war rather, he'd been in a concentration camp as a prisoner of war because they put them in them places sometimes and he was put to work, so imagine how horrible that was, and he survived that, so he had the mentality, my grandfather, that pretty much anything is survivable, anything can be overcome,

you can overcome anything eventually, you know it's hard but you can do it, and he had that mentality that my dad was going to be okay, so they didn't treat him as if he was going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, I mean to start with they said he wouldn't be able to, he'd like, he might not get any movement in the whole of his body because he couldn't move his body to start with because he had a broken neck and multiple other injuries,

and then bit by bit he was okay, he like recovered, and my nan and grandad were very positive because they believed that he was going to be okay, they, my nan was very religious so I think that helped her, my grandad was not religious at all, but he just believed that my dad would be okay, and they kind of had plans for him, like you know they, kind of what he would do with his life and it wasn't their plans but they knew what his plans were,

and he had plans to be self-employed and he never gave up, and I've heard those kind of stories about other people where having something to look forward to just seems like really, really important, and it doesn't have to be something big, doesn't have to be a trip to Disneyland or doesn't have to be a flight to the moon, I mean eventually there will be flights to the moon or flights to space, you know there's a kind of, you can just pay to go, that will be happening soon, probably next few years,

I don't know if I'd want to go there though, it doesn't look like there's much there, like in space, I like the idea of maybe looking at the planet from a distance but I can watch that on YouTube so maybe I don't need to, the only thing I struggle with, how can it be spinning, how can it know the exact speed to spin so that it stays the same, because when a propeller spins you can see it still kind of moving can't you, like it's not moving or it's moving very slowly,

with the planet it's like the earth is just static, yeah clouds and stuff but how does it manage to just reach the right speed, it doesn't make sense does it really, you'd think why are we not all dizzy all the time you know, strange, maybe they got it wrong, maybe the earth is on top of a big tortoise, it's possible, I closed the window so it's a bit stuffy in here, I had a visitor, that's not the reason it's stuffy,

it's just I guess having more than one person in here is taking more oxygen than normal if that's the thing, so I'm just thinking what can you look forward to, what can I look forward to, we can like play this little game together, what can we look forward to and I do wonder about that, it's like okay when I had my job in the last insurance job I had, I cleared my credit card which I was pleased about and then I decided to sign up for a hypnosis course which was due to start in I don't know September I think,

so this was at the beginning of the year maybe April, May time and every time I asked the question do you have any, do you any do any educational courses, are you a student or anything like that, that was part of one of the questions on the for the quotation for the car insurance, I'd get a happy feeling that I was going to be doing that course, it reminded me of something that I was looking forward to and I quite liked that feeling,

I didn't end up going of course because I got ill but that's a different thing, so having something to look forward to, it doesn't have to be, it can be anything, doesn't have to be anything, doesn't have to not be anything, it's just whatever, what do you enjoy doing, what it could be something that you're looking forward to doing tomorrow or today or in 10 minutes, something that you can plan for a year away, two years away because I find that sometimes when I don't have anything or I have not not necessarily got anything to look forward to, I have a tendency of looking backwards rather than forward.

Without having like little signposts in the future because of course it hasn't happened yet but there's a signpost for a few boxing nights that are going to be happening, one in October, one in December, there's starting my degree course 5th of October, there's these little signposts and then you've got Christmas, that's all just little signposts and maybe other little things that I'm planning on doing, I've got my dentist appointment end of October, yay, doctor's appointment this week, but even those things are still a little,

there's a signpost of something that's going to happen and looking forward to something doesn't mean necessarily getting excited, just it is just looking forward, it's almost a way to say that the future does exist or the future will exist, the future will happen, so by planning further ahead which I've started to do, for example when I'm 60 I will be finishing my degree course and I will have my second degree and I'll have a first, that's my goal but that won't happen until 2030, I know, blimey, 2030,

so that's when that will happen, 2030 and I'm now tinkering with the idea of starting a new martial arts, not starting a new, not my own style, but starting to go training again, we're in a new club and, did I just say club?

And my new thing is to have that goal of getting a black belt by the time I finish my degree, now if I do the, I should probably get a black belt within four to five years really, but just have that goal to at least by the time I'm 60 have a black belt and you know there's people including my own voices in my head who might say you're too old, what are you doing starting something so old in life, what are you doing taking up a dangerous physical sport when you're so old,

you're going to be 60 by the time you're finished and the amount of people have asked me, like family and people that I know, like what are you going to do with the degree, why are you doing the degree, what are you going to do, you know, you'll be 60, you'll be 60 when you get the degree, well I'm doing it because I want to do it because for fun, the same reason you hear that dog in the background, sorry about that, I'm not really responsible for the dog, it's not my dog,

Vinnie is his mum's, so he's, I just spoke to her on the phone, apparently he's, she's just been doing some washing, so she's folding her clothes up, just come out of the dryer and he's just grabbing them and pushing them everywhere, it's really causing, giving a hassle, I'm gonna pick him up when I finish this recording, it's currently 4.25pm on Tuesday, I know, trivia Tuesday, oh well, I've come to the conclusion, I can't, I struggle to limit myself with doing stuff on different days, I'm just going to do stuff whenever I feel like it,

I will, apart from Q&A Friday, I'm going to stick to that and maybe eventually I will become disciplined and adult enough to stick to another day of doing a specific thing, but right now, although, yeah, there's, I've kind of got a idea of what I'm doing, I'm going to start making weird noise when I breathe, like that, what was I talking about, oh yeah, Vinnie, oh man, if you go to the Facebook group, Jason Newland's Boring Group, or actually if you go to YouTube as well, there's a video of Vinnie when he was a baby,

he's so cute, and I've also posted a bunch of pictures that I got from his mum, because that's where he used to live with her, until he bit her on the face, so she had to give him up because she had little kids around, she had grandkids, and she was worried that he was going to bite them, so, and ironically, today, he bit me, yep, he had something, I was outside, and there was something on his tail, and it looked to me like it was, I don't know, like a flea,

not a flea, but like something like that, like a creepy crawly thing, so I was just like, wait a minute, all I was going to do was just pick it off, make sure it's okay, and just get it off his tail, and there's on the outside, the top part of his tail as well, well, he didn't like that, and he snapped at me, and he bit my little finger, he didn't draw blood, but he did kind of, it pierced the skin a little bit, it's a little bit red, and yeah,

I was not best pleased with that, yeah, I know that he doesn't like his tail touched, I should know that, he's let me know plenty of times, he doesn't like me touching his feet either, he's quite temperamental, but apparently, he's always been like that, he's been very mischievous right from birth, he was an only child, he had eight nipples to choose from, when he was being breastfed by his mum, I'll just picture his mum on there as well, she wasn't all red, she was like white and red,

and even his dad wasn't all red, so how he managed to be, I know he's got like white feet, white socks and that, but, and a bit of a white belly, has he got a white belly, I can't remember, I should look at him more often, but he, yeah, he kind of had his, he's had his own way a lot, so he's always been treated nicely, which is, which is how it should be, but I think he's, I need to figure out some kind of, not discipline, probably,

I don't know what the right word is, some way to get him to behave a bit better, he's usually so good, but occasionally, he's like then, biting me, I mean, I don't hurt, I've never hurt him, I've never, never would, so what does he think I'm going to do by just touching his tail, it's not like, I've not like pulled his tail as a joke, and he didn't like it, and he, you know, it's not, unless that did happen, because he was around little kids, when he was a baby,

so maybe they were pulling him by the tail, and he didn't like it, maybe they were swinging him around, you don't know with little kids, do you, so maybe that's something that you don't like, but that video, it's got, it's actually got a baby crying, because there's a baby at the time in the house, and whenever we play the video, there's a sound of the child crying, Vinnie goes nutty, starts barking, he recognizes that sound, if I played a baby crying on YouTube, he wouldn't take any notice, but he recognized that sound,

so he, he was born in that house, and he spent the first probably couple of months of his life there, or however long before he was able to be sold on to someone else, so he got sold to a lady in Kent, and then she got unwell, she gave him back to the people that bred him, and that man's mother-in-law is my friend, my neighbor, and she took him on, it was only temporarily really, but then she, because she'd known him all his life, kind of wanted to,

I think she was going to keep him, and then you know, I think she was eating chicken, and he was trying to, she would give him any of his chicken, well not his chicken, her chicken, and he bit her on the face, so yeah, I mean if I'd have known that, I probably wouldn't have had him, to be fair, because if he ever bit me on the face, I wouldn't, I couldn't keep him after that, I don't think, I think that's, that's a, that's a line,

I'm not a big fan of being bitten on the face by anyone, that'd probably be my line, but I've eaten in front of him, and he's begged and stuff, and he's never, well when I first got him, he used to, he was like growling at me, and I just put my face right next to his face, like come on, and he backed down, so I think he knows who's in charge, but blimey, bit my finger though, god, it's my little finger, and it's right on where I used to have a dog bite from years ago,

about 2000 and probably 2008, I had, I was delivering leaflets for my website basically, and dog, just put it, just put, there's one of those really hard letter boxes, I couldn't, I had to push my fingers all the way through, and it basically ripped the end of my little finger off, and yeah, they said, oh we're gonna have to, you're probably gonna need plastic surgery, and I just laughed at them, I said come on, it's my little finger, if I'm gonna have plastic surgery, my little finger is like not even in the top 20 of that list,

and he laughed, it's like, I mean, let's face it, it's just a finger, I don't care what it looks like, as long as it's, they thought it was broken to start with, but I'm not sure if it was broken as well, it might have been, but it was definitely mangled, but the nail grew back, it's weird, it's like there was no nail, but it grew back out of nowhere, I think I just regenerated it, so yeah, I've just been wondering about having something to look forward to, because it seems to,

it can help to get through stuff, help to, but you know that when some people say, oh you know, like they can't see a future, and they don't, and that's a problem, I know technically it's imagination, but so is negativity, so being positive about the future is the same process as being negative about it, it's the same process, it's just using your imagination to think of things that you want to happen, as opposed to focusing on things you don't want to happen, and I know of which I speak,

because I spent decades, I guess doing both to be honest, still do sometimes, and I realized over the years that we are affected by both, we can be affected by both, so if you're going to do it, why not think about something that you are looking forward to doing, that's what I'm thinking, I don't know, what do you reckon, I mean even like, I remember my dad, he had a massive, he had to have a tumor removed from his neck when we was, I was about 12, and it was in a really,

it was non-malignant, that wasn't an issue, but it was still growing, but it was in a really, really dangerous place, so I didn't know my dad was going to be the star of this recording, so he had to have a really major operation to have it removed, and all he was thinking about was after the operation, the idea of it being a problem didn't even come into his mind, I don't think, it might have done, but he didn't mention it, I stepped my money over and told me that he might die,

which was like, why would you tell that to a kid, but so I was at school praying, literally, while he was in hospital, having it done, but he was positive, he was like, he's like, okay, we've done this, and we'll go on holiday when it's, when I've recovered, and it took him about six weeks or two months to recover from the operation, I think, enough to sort of go back to work in that, and he was self-employed, so that was, that's probably super rough on him, to be honest, financially,

I'd have offered him some of my paper, paper round money, but I didn't want to, I wanted it for myself, I had chocolate to buy, so he had things to look forward to, and I remember, I do remember that even when I was a kid, no matter how difficult things was, at times, I needed something to look forward to, and I'd, I'd honestly, I'd, I'd grip anything that might give me that little bit of, oh, good, looking forward to that, whether it was a television show,

whether it was seeing a girl that I liked at school, whether it was, oh, we'll have pizza, have pizza for dinner, or there's a movie, we'll have, we'll get, you know, we'll get some videos from the video shop at the weekend, anything that I could try and hold on to, to look forward to, just to get me through the period, because I was, I would say, I'm bipolar, whatever, all my life, like, as a child, I was in and out of, um, moods, like, serious mood swings when I was a kid,

but I didn't tell anyone, I had to kind of pretend to be okay, but I didn't pull it off very well, because I'd be very grumpy, and then other times I'd be completely the opposite, you know, when I was in a good, good mood, I didn't need anything to look forward to, I didn't think I did, but I think it's needed all the time, something, and the good thing about it is that you can be as creative as you want with it, that's what I like, because I can imagine when I'm 60,

traveling the world, I perhaps don't know if I'll be able to do that at the moment, but when I finish my degree course, when I'm black belt, maybe I'll travel around, it's only six years away, and if I do train, I might be fitter than I am now, when I'm 60, I won't be any sexier, because who could get sexier than me, I love saying that, this is so silly, makes me laugh, see, um, sex, I still can't believe I had someone once tell me on YouTube, you really think you're sexy,

don't you, like no, it's sarcasm, irony, it's humor, it's just me being silly, it's the fact that I'm not, that's why I'm saying I am, um, so I'm thinking, because you know, we could do these, uh, what you're grateful for, that's a hugely important thing as well, something that we're grateful for, but I think just as important, equally as important, if not more important even, sometimes, would be what you're looking forward to, and it's not about, as I said before, it's not just about what you're excited about,

what's going to happen in the future, what are you looking forward, what are you looking, how are you seeing your future, are you seeing your future where your youngest child is going to prom, prom night, when she's 16, or he's 16, 15, whatever year, age that is, or leaving university and you go to their graduation when they're 20 or 21, can you imagine maybe giving your child, or your grandchild even, going to your grandchild's graduation, maybe taking your grandchild to school, seeing your grandchild for the first time,

even though your child now might only be three or four years old, but just thinking about that in the future, those wonderful experiences that haven't happened yet, and will be just, whether it happens or not, it's not important whether you have grandchildren, it's not, it's not relevant, it's the fact that you can see that that might happen, you're looking into the future, and you can see a future, and you can start to map it out, and because it hasn't happened yet, you can choose what happens, and then when you get there,

it doesn't happen, it doesn't matter if it doesn't all happen exactly how you want, that's not really the point, the point is that you've got something to aim for, there's that old adage isn't there, that if you, you'll never hit a bullseye of a dartboard, if you don't aim at the dartboard, you know, if you aim at, if you don't focus on where you're chucking the dart, you may never hit the dart, the hole in one, hole in one, that's golf isn't it, blimey, you might never hit the bullseye,

or the triple 20, but you will eventually, if you chuck, you chuck enough times you're going to hit the bullseye anyway, just it's a numbers game for that, but skillfully you might not be able to manipulate it right to get it there, but guaranteed if you face the other way, and all you're doing is looking in a different direction, and you throw the darts there, you're never going to hit the door, the dartboard, ever, unless the darts are really light, and it's a big gush of wind,

and blows them back into the dartboard, but yeah, outside of that kind of scenario, or there's actually metal in the dart, in the dart, and just as you chuck it, you put, you've got a big generated magnet behind the dartboard, so it pulls everything that's metal towards it, so your dart might go that way, but outside of that situation, unless, no, but so, you kind of have to focus, by focusing on something, it doesn't mean you're necessarily going to get there, but it's going to get somewhere near there,

you can focus on the bullseye, it might go in the double eight, it might go in the treble five, might go in the nine, but it's going to go, it might go on the outside of the dartboard, might go in the black bits, where, or might hit the metal bits, and just bounce off, but it's going to be near the bullseye, it's going to be in that vicinity, so you can imagine yourself winning the lottery, or driving a really beautiful car in the future, or maybe imagine giving your, your three-year-old child,

or four-year-old child now, giving them driving lessons in 15 years time, you can imagine what kind of car it is that you're giving them driving lessons in, it doesn't mean that it will be the exact car, might not be that color, they might, they might want a different colored car, but you still be doing the driving lessons, maybe they won't be driving lessons by then, but it doesn't matter, because it might be a case of you sit in the car with them, and you say well you need to,

you need to still keep an eye out for stuff, you know, even though it's all self-driven, but you know, this is how you operate the thing, you need to speak to it like this, and you need to, so you're still going to be involved in that, is this the weirdest recording I've ever done, it might be, I don't mind, so what are you looking forward to, that's what this recording is about, what are you looking forward to, so I'll tell you what I'm looking forward to, I've kind of already told you really,

so for me it's little things, I look forward every day, and this might sound a bit strange, I look forward to waking up in the morning to edit my recording, but also just to see if I had any, how many recordings, how many downloads rather have I had, I look forward to, it's on a day-to-day basis, look forward to hopefully creating a recording, which I don't, can't always manage, but I try to record something, it might be a movie that I look forward to watching,

like at the moment I'm looking forward to watching Deadpool 3, that's a movie I'm looking forward to watching, but then we're going into the future, I'm looking forward to, as I said earlier, some boxing events, which takes us up to the end of the year, there's a few, so I'm looking forward to those, I'm looking forward to, again it's not just things that I'm excited about, it's also things that are going to happen as well, so I'm looking forward to the doctor's appointment, but I'm looking forward,

and that's where the doctor's appointment is in the future, so I'm not looking forward to it like, yeah, and especially with the dentist appointment at the end of next month, I'm not thinking, oh calm, count in the days, because, you know, I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of having things in my mouth, well it depends what they are, but you know, just generally, you know, I think dentist, I'm not that bothered, but, and as far as I know my teeth are okay, the most that's going to happen is a filling,

or two, I don't know, but that is it, there's no major, no major things going on that I can tell from my teeth, but I'm looking forward to that, because that's the literal term of looking forward, I know, maybe that is where you are, but in this country, we say we're looking forward to something, it's like we're excited, we're filled with enthusiasm about this event that will be coming up, we're looking forward to it, but I want to, I guess I want to be maybe pedantic, or literal with the meaning of the sentence,

which is looking forward, as opposed to looking backward, so not looking into the past, or looking at the past, but looking into the future, and planning the future, it's almost like we're planting these little trees, that when we get there, they will be nice, and big, and strong, so we're kind of planning our future, and in a way we do that anyway, you know, people that are, maybe they've got pensions, or they've got stocks, and bonds, and things like that, or maybe insurance policies, like I'm thinking like financially, some people,

a lot of people plan ahead, so that when they retire, or when they reach a certain age, they can then enjoy the retirement that they deserve, because they've made that happen, and even if they're not going to, they might not even be having enough money to do all the things they want to do, but they're still looking forward, because that's the future, isn't it, you can't look back at the future, oh dear, we're going into movie territory now, so when I think about the future, I think about what am I looking forward to,

as opposed to what am I excited about, so when I look forward, I don't, I think the thing is, whatever emotion we give to something that's going to happen in the future, is our own feelings we've added, because it hasn't happened yet, so we can decide in our minds how it works out, how it turns out, how we experience it, how it's going to be for us, because it hasn't happened yet, it's as simple as that, so if you've got a plan, and you've got to choose an emotion,

why not just choose a nice one, a nice feeling, a positive emotion to connect it to that event in the future, so let's say you've got, you know, if you think about your grandchild being born in 10, 15, 20 years time, whatever it is, a year's time, two years time, you imagine, you're going to imagine your grandchild being born healthy, and your daughter or your stepdaughter or daughter-in-law, whatever, being healthy as well, and everyone being healthy and happy, because that's the only way to do it,

there is no other way really to plan stuff like that, I mean it's not even just being positive, it's how else are we supposed to look to the future, unless we put a positive slant on it, to make it happy, because you're creating it yourself, and also however we think about the future will affect how the future is, in the same way as, I remember, dar blimey, I used to have this issue with someone that I used to see in a shop, and I just didn't didn't like him,

seemed like he didn't like me, and I didn't like going in there, because he was, I don't know, something just wasn't rude, rude, but just not friendly, and my friend said to me, with that person in the shop, because he got on really well with him, he said, you know he's, he's a big fan of boxing, I said really, he said yeah, so I just, me and him didn't get on, well, I went in there, my friend came in with me, and I started talking to him about boxing,

we get on like best friends now, this is like two or three years ago, but we get on really well, I've even got, I've got his number on my phone, because we talked about boxing, we had something in common, and that broke right through, that whatever that coldness was, whatever that, there was something there, neither of us just connected with each other, and I was seeing him like every day, and then suddenly, talk about boxing, and the way I viewed him was different, the way he viewed me, I imagine was different,

I've never talked to him about it, to be honest, and it was so easy, I could have just kept that up for next, the last three or four years, just going in there, never speaking to him, and just getting what I needed to get, feeling that he was being rude to me, when actually he probably wasn't, my, my, my mood or my thinking seemed to be affecting how he was acting towards me, my, maybe my behavior, my body language, my, the way I was speaking to him, maybe wasn't friendly,

and I didn't, I wasn't aware of that, I wasn't, you know, but I can't talk about boxing without really being kind of infused, because it's the thing that I'm really into, so I could talk to a complete stranger about boxing, and get on with them as well as my best, bestest friend in the whole wide world, because I'm talking about something that interests me, and something that I have a little bit of knowledge about, so in the same way that when we start thinking about the future, our attitude, my attitude,

your attitude will affect, if our attitude affects interactions that we have had in the past, presently, they're going to affect interactions in the future, so then we can just decide to fine-tune, or make changes, or imagine that things are going to go really well, and I've done that a few times when, god do I, I do sound a bit monotonous don't I, monotone us, job interviews is one of those things, I've always, I've been quite good in job interviews over the years, not all, not all job interviews, but some,

and I can get into that mindset where I rehearse in my mind beforehand, and I just believe it's going to go well, and when I, when I feel that way, it's always gone well, always, and when I have that in the past, I've had feelings about the future, and it just felt like it's going to be good, and generally it is, and I've been amazed at how often my attitude, or my mood, has really affected my experience, when I could be doing exactly the same thing, and the experience is different two days in a row,

but I'm doing exactly the same thing, but just in a different mood, it reminds me of this, this comedian called Earl Oaken, and he was, he looked like Roy Orbison, seriously, he looked like Roy Orbison, and he would sing like bluesy songs, but they were funny, and he was a big name on the circuit, and I saw him on a Friday and Saturday night at the comedy club I was at, and I honestly, I've never, I've seen it a couple of times, this happened a couple of times,

but this was the worst one ever, right, the Friday night, he went on stage, sat down, and people were literally chucking things at him, he got booed off the stage, he was the headliner, he was a big name on the circuit, and he got booed off, and they were literally chucking, chucking stuff, which I don't think I've ever seen ever, the whole time I was there, and I've seen thousands of gigs, it's very rare you see people chucking stuff on stage, and I actually thought, even though I knew that he was a good comedian,

well, he was better than good, he was one of the, he was a top comedian, I thought, oh, maybe, and I was watching it, thinking, this is rubbish, I'll be honest, I thought, he didn't say one funny thing, not one thing did he do that was funny, and I was with the audience, I didn't chuck anything, obviously, but I thought he was awful, I thought, why have they got him as a headliner, absolutely, really, really bad, and he turned up on a Saturday night to do his next gig, like,

I couldn't believe, like, why have you got him back, and he said he's contracted, that's it, he's contracted for, we had a talk, it took us six months to get, he's, you know, he's on a waiting list for six months to get him here, so he's contracted for Friday and Saturday night, and I said, are you going to have him back again, he said, probably not, after last night, so he goes on stage, I swear, word for word, movement, everything was the same, the way he tuned his guitar,

the way he made his mouth expression, the way he moved his glasses, the, even where he looked, everything, the tone of voice, the wording, it was almost, word for word, exactly what he did on Friday, the night before, and it's probably one of the best performances I've ever seen, and the audience were giving him, like, a standing ovation, which is another thing you don't see that often in, like, a comedy club, you know, it's not like a theatre or anything, it's like a comedy club, a lot of drunk people,

and it's, you know, they get lots of clapping, but to actually have a standing ovation, now, I would exaggerate and say I was chucking flowers on the stage, but that didn't, that didn't happen, but I honestly, I got a straight, like, word for word, everything was the same that he did, the audience loved him, and I loved him, and it's weird, because I would say part of the reason the Friday audience didn't like him, because they decided right at the start, and they affected each other, the audience affected each other,

that energy spread, that negative energy, whatever it was, he did exactly the same thing both nights, and I'd seen him afterwards as well, and he, I'm not saying he always did the same thing, he was very funny, but on this occasion, he knew it was going to be two different audiences, people didn't go back there on a Friday and a Saturday night, so different people, I mean, different audiences, so we were all affecting each other, so that negativity that was in the room on the Friday was spreading, even spread to me,

and I, you know, many times I've laughed at a comedian where the audience hated them, you know, I tried to, like, I don't care what the audience are doing, I would get carried away with the audience, well, sometimes I see the audience laughing, and I think, why are they laughing, even in that situation, but on this occasion, the negativity was so strong that it spread to me, and I couldn't, like, I was with the audience, he says, this is awful, on a Saturday night, I couldn't stop laughing,

and it's one of those really weird experiences that I still can't really explain, not really, other than attitude, expectation maybe, but I expected him to be rubbish again, on a Saturday, before he went on stage, I was expecting the worst, but the audience weren't, and when he got on stage, they were laughing straight away, before he even sat down, so even expectation, my expectation didn't affect how I experienced him, because the day before, I was expecting him to be brilliant, and I think I was really laughing before he sat down,

and then it went downwards from there, but he believed himself, he knew that it worked, and I'm not 100% sure why I'm telling this story, it just came into my mind, just the memory, but that ability to be affected by others is worth watching out for sometimes, especially when it comes to other people's negativity, because it's not necessary, they can keep that, other people's positivity, you can sail on top of that stuff, you know, positivity is like a huge, huge boat where everyone can get on, you know,

it's big enough for the whole world to like travel across the ocean on, negativity, that's like just having bricks tied to your ankles, but individually, you know, you fall in with all the other negative people, but you end up going to the bottom of the ocean on your own, so positivity brings people together, negative, it just tears people apart, put it this way, if he was about to have an operation, which I've had two operations in my life, may have more in the future, who knows, what would you prefer,

the doctor to come in saying everything's going to be great, done this a million times, even, even if they were almost not giving you the sympathy that maybe you think you deserve, because I like a little bit of sympathy sometimes, but if the doctor's like really positive, it's going to be fine, I've done this operation thousands of times, it's routine, we'll remove what we need to remove and you'll go on your merry way and you're going to be fine, if you need some more treatment, you'll have some more treatment and you're going to be fine,

there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people around the world have gone through this and they've come out the other end absolutely fine and the ones that come out the best are the ones that are most positive and they have something planned for the future and they're looking forward to the future, not, not just in an excited way but actually have those flags planted or those trees maybe in the future so you can look ahead and you can see stuff that's going to happen even outside of your own life,

for example there will be a general election in this country, my country, the one I in five years time, so that would be 2029, wrong century sorry, 2029 there'll be another general election, if they don't call one earlier that is, they won't call one earlier guaranteed, there'll be another general election in America in 2029, so these are things that are pretty much guaranteed, you know something is just going to happen, there's other things that are going to happen that we can look forward to, we know that there's going to be space travel,

we know that there's going to be, one day there's going to be a human being on mars, it will happen, whether we believe it or not it's going to happen, one day all the cars on the road will be automated, we don't need to drive them, that is going to happen, it's not, it's not even questioned, so it's interesting like so you've got these things that are going to happen, we don't necessarily know when but we know they're going to happen, like you know it's going to rain,

it might be the sunniest day in history right now but you know at some point in the future it's going to rain, it's going to be windy, it's going to snow at some point in the future, I guess depending on where you live in the world but you know generally if you're in the western world it's going to rain and snow, it's going to be cold, it's going to be hot, you're going to eat, you're going to have to go to the toilet, all those things are going to happen in the future,

hundreds, thousands of times, thousands of poos and wheeze, I mean I'm not saying fill your future with lots of poos and wheeze, I don't like to have lots of poos on the floor and stuff like that in the future because that that would be, yeah follow the brown poo road, follow the brown poo road, oh you know maybe not but this stuff is just inevitable going to happen, so you've got these things, if you've got a child, that child is going to go to high school, secondary school,

whatever you call it when they're 12, 11 and then they're going to leave school and then one day they're going to be in a relationship with someone, a romantic relationship, it's just these things that just happen, inevitable happens, so it's things you can look forward to and because you know it's going to happen, it doesn't mean you've got to be all excited about it but why not, why not like start to imagine what kind of,

how's your daughter or your son going to look on their graduation day or how's your how your child going to look on prom night with their tuxedo or whatever they wear these days, I never had a prom night when I was a kid, they have them here now, never used to but it's, they have them in this country too, so there's certain things that are going to happen every year, Halloween, Christmas, Easter or whatever the holiday that you celebrate there is, Ramadan, Diwali and what's the one in Christmas, the other one,

I forget, there's so many, lots and lots of different festivals and things but wherever you're coming from, whatever your belief system is, there are things to look forward to and again it's not necessarily about being excited, it's about looking forward, there's something there, like you've got a bridge, you don't cross a bridge unless the bridge leads somewhere, you wouldn't walk on a bridge that just had no, didn't go anywhere, you know, has to connect where you are to where you're going and we cross many many bridges along the way and you can always see in front of you,

you might not be able to see far far far in front but maybe with a telescope you could look and start to plan with your imagination what your future is going to be and even if it doesn't turn out that way, that's not really the point, it's not about imagining something and every single minute detail being correct, it's not, that's not really what this is about, it's about seeing a future or imagining a future, hearing a future maybe, experiencing it, feeling it inside, knowing that it's there, that actually there's so much,

so many wonderful things are going to happen, there's going to be some rubbish things as well, obviously, but so many really lovely things, a positive always outweighs anything else and I understand it's human nature to, you know, go to, they might have the most amazing wedding and, you know, have the most amazing dinner and then a glass of red wine spills over maybe the bride and therefore there could be that mentality of like it's ruined, the wedding's ruined, well it hasn't ruined the wedding,

it might ruin the way you're thinking but in reality you just spent the whole day having fun and being happy, maybe happier than you've ever been in your life and you've got to let a glass of red wine spoil that, come on, there is a, and this lady, there's a story and she, oh she was always moaning, always moaning, right, always complaining, right, I won't say the word moaning, always complaining about her husband and oh you're so messy, you're so messy,

you're always leaving stuff around and he was in a car accident and he never returned home and she'd be sitting at home not wishing that he was still alive but wishing that the house was still messy, so she wanted the house to be messy again because that would mean that he'd still be there with her, right, so these little things that bug us as well as like well if you take it to the extreme situation, the way that your husband or your wife drinks a cup of tea, maybe they slurp too much,

I've got a friend who can't stand seeing her husband eat a yogurt, it's just little things, I understand, I do get it that things can be annoying, trust me, I've annoyed enough people to know, devoted my life to annoying people, I haven't really, just the first 35 years, so but imagine that person's gone, what wouldn't you give to see them slurping that tea, making that weird noise, maybe the relationship's over or whatever, for whatever reason they're not there anymore, so I guess it's not just looking forward to the future,

it's also appreciating now, appreciating the present, the way that I've recorded once, I called it the present is a present and the future is a gift, I was very proud with that, with that title of a recording I did, and then I think I just talked about tennis for about an hour, so anyway it was a good title, I don't, I've never talked about tennis for a whole hour, I wouldn't even know how to, I know so little about tennis, I mean you could argue I know so little about anything,

which is a good argument, but I don't mind, because it don't matter at all much, I've noticed though, there is a thing, so things that have changed, there was a time when if a neighbor had loud music, I would lose it, I'm talking like anger on a level that is not even natural, now I can lay in bed, like now I can lay in bed, and I can have loud music coming from three different places, and I don't care, I get a little bit, if it's disturbing the recording,

I do get a little bit, oh turn it down, I'm not angry, I'm not like emotionally affected by it anymore, and it can't affect me, and the only way I could get to that point, is by getting to a point where I nearly did something really really bad, and luckily I didn't, I'm not going to go into it, but I nearly showed my anger towards the people, but I didn't, and I'm grateful for that, so grateful, and now it just doesn't really bother me anymore, because it's not important,

if it was 24 hours a day, yeah I'd have something to say, but every now and then, a bit of loud music, oh well, but back then I wasn't thinking of the future either, that just didn't have, there was a period when I had nothing to look forward to, and I really believed there was nothing in the future, but there was, and knowing that there is, I mean, when you started listening to this, and now, this is now the future, compared to back then, wow, mind-blowing, I've changed your world,

I know, but seriously, tomorrow is the future, the day after, I know some people say take each day as it comes, and I understand, if someone's coming from a negative perspective, if they're going to be in their mind, preparing for the next day to be as awful as today's been, then yeah, then just focus on today, but if you're going to plan tomorrow to be a better day, because that's a good thing about healing, isn't it, we all heal, so if you had an operation, or you're having treatment, you're going to heal,

you're going to get better, and every day can be a step forward towards full recovery, where maybe you feel even better than you did before, and something that can help that recovery is thinking about those things that you're looking forward to in the future, those things, it doesn't have to be a big thing, I mean, sometimes for me, I just, I look forward to, I'm trying to think of something I look forward to doing, and maybe going to the pet shop to get Vinnie a treat, or watching a movie,

like I said earlier, or perhaps just seeing the stats in the morning, seeing if I've had any, if I've had any people view my videos on YouTube, just little things like that, so that's kind of looking forward in the short term, in the long term, there's things I'm looking forward to, there's things I'd like to do in the future, and I plan in my mind, plant these seeds, which I did many years ago, with this whole thing I'm doing, my plan was to reach a large audience,

at one point I did have a fairly large audience, it's an okay audience, it's not a huge audience, but it's still, it's growing, it's always growing, and to make a difference, and although I don't get much feedback, I've had enough feedback from people telling me that I have, in fact, indeed made a difference, and that I haven't just been wasting the last 18 years of my life, and that means something to me, because I planted those seeds in the future, the seeds of maybe feeling confident making these recordings, to one day,

going back in the past, to one day being able to find my voice, to be able to just talk naturally, and still be able to make a difference, without trying to, you know, without planning what I'm going to say, or without having a particular agenda, or to just be able to one day tap into a sense, a feeling of positivity, and I'm going to use the word healing, but something where my words can have a positive effect, and can help you to move forward in a way that is useful for you,

because you've got the choice how you live your life, and you can choose what you decide to look forward to, I mean, ultimately, we all decide every second of every day, what we say next, what we do next, how we feel, we can control, we can decide how we feel about something, we don't have to just be reactive, for those that are, I'm reactive sometimes, but sometimes I just think, well, I'm not that worried, even when Vinnie bit me, in the initial moment, oh, I won't even tell you how I felt,

but it dawned on me after a little while, that I was, didn't really care that much actually, I knew that he didn't like having his tail touched, I touched his tail anyway, he let me know plenty of times in the past, not to touch his tail, and put it this way, if he wanted to bite me hard, he would have done, that was a warning shot, well, he did the warning shot, first of all, when he growled, and I ignored him, and I went back for more, and that's when he nipped me,

but I felt his grip, when he's got a hold of a ball, or something, and he went, don't let it go, so he wasn't, you know, he's got a tight grip on him, so I could literally be sitting there, and it's still attached to my finger, but he's not, although I probably wouldn't be doing a podcast, I'd probably be asking for help, I don't know how I'd do that though, yeah, I need an ambulance, why, there's a dog attached to my finger, can you make, I don't know how it would work,

I suppose I could just take him to hospital with me, I'd say, what's wrong, okay, how can I help you, yeah, I need this human removed from my mouth, so that's it really, I need to go and pick up Vinnie from, I said I'd be picking him up at seven, no, five o'clock, it's now half past five, I wonder if I'm in trouble, and see if she's texted me, have you got any black bin bags, shut up, black bin bags, always after stuff, okay, I'll take one, take some around to her,

and yeah, so what you could do, if you wanted to, I mean you might be thinking about things that you can plan for the future, things to look forward to, I've done that in the past, I've got a piece of paper, and I just made it look like a map, sometimes I've even kind of drawn a pathway, a little bit like the yellow brick road kind of thing, and then just signposted what's going to be happening along the way, the good thing is, it's a bit like those, remember,

I suppose they have them in computer games, but there's those old books that weren't old when I was a kid, but they, you could read them, and then you could basically choose, so go to page 74, if you think this is going to happen, or if you think this is going to happen, and you go to whichever page you think that's going to happen, so it'd be a different adventure, and it's kind of like that, however we choose, because you know, I've got, my friend said to me, what was it,

she, what did she say, oh yeah, it's all, we were talking about childhood and stuff, and she's saying it was all the bad things that were shaping how I am, and it has such an effect, I said, but isn't it interesting, because we were talking about childhood and stuff, it's interesting, how often do we say that about the good things that have happened in our lives, because we've all had really, really good things, all of us, I've had good experiences, positive experiences, we've all been helped, I'm saying all,

I know I'm generalizing, but I've never met anyone that hasn't been helped, whether they admit it or not, whether they acknowledge it or not, and that has had a big effect on our lives as well, hasn't it, so I sometimes wonder, how would it be if we spent a bit of time every day, because I do this, I don't do it for that reason, but I've got this thing about gratitude, as far as who's helped me, who would I like to thank, and I don't thank them personally,

unless I still have contact with them, so my friend Noel phoned me up the other day, and every time I speak to him, he's off traveling the world, and he's got a yacht, and he retired, and he used to own a comedy club, and he, every time I speak to him, before he goes, I thank him, and he always makes a joke, like, you know, like tries to turn it into a joke, but I said, no, listen, thank you, if it wasn't for you, you know, you changed my life,

if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now, you know, you transformed my life, and I said, I want you to know this, I mean, he's my dad's age now, and he's probably 20 years healthier than I am, to be fair, it's probably about 40 year old health-wise, but he's, it's just important to thank him, I want to thank my dad, I want to, but it's just sometimes, it's a little bit harder maybe, but I do, you know, I want to, I think it's like,

at least I think it in my mind, and there's people in the past that have helped me, and I've spent so many years of thinking about the things that maybe they did that weren't good, and now be able to focus on some of the good things that they did, and actually that they perhaps really did mean well, yeah, anyway, I'm going to go, so that's me, that's to Let Me Bore You To Sleep, a little bit different from normal, so I will be back again tomorrow, thank you for listening,

remember to be kind to yourself, because you do deserve to be happy, and I probably won't be quite as serious tomorrow, I don't know, we'll just go, if I'm in this mood, that's what I'll do, if I'm not, then I won't, I'll just do whatever mood I'm in, and hopefully it's useful, so thank you for listening, remember to be kind to yourself, remember to be gentle with yourself, and what have you got to look forward to, what can you create in your mind to look forward to, lots of love, bye.