I Don’t Know What I’m Doing — Gig Work, Mindfulness, and Starting This Podcast

On my 42nd birthday, I finally hit record. This first episode is a raw, honest origin story: life in the gig economy, working 50–60 hours a week to keep the lights on, and the moment in my car when everything bottomed out—and opened up. From toxic “think your way rich” self-help to a simple, practical mindfulness that met me right where I was (hands on the wheel, breath in the chest), I share how paying attention turned grinding anxiety into a surprising, steady peace.

You’ll hear:

• How financial pressure, long hours, and late fees set the stage—and why I started this show anyway.
• The text from a delivery customer that nudged me to begin.
• What “Standing Nowhere” means: trusting direct experience over concepts, and the shared heart of wisdom across traditions—Jesus, Buddha, and beyond.
• Easy, real-world practices you can try while driving, walking, or brushing your teeth to come back to now.

If bills wake you up at 3 a.m., if you’re burned out, or if you’re simply curious about a gentler way to move through your day, this one’s for you. Thanks for listening—and if it resonates, follow, rate, and share the show with someone who’s in the grind. More conversations, practices, and guests to come.

This episode discusses depression, financial stress, and past suicidal thoughts. Please take care while listening.
 U.S. support: Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). Text HOME to 741741. 

Chapters

• 0:37 Birthday Start (why today)
• 4:54 Cost Of Living Crush (move to Gilbert)
• 9:37 Red Mornings (daily in the red)
• 11:21 Self-Help Backfire (affirmations harm)
• 13:14 Mindfulness Spark (Wherever You Go)
• 16:33 From Mourning To Peace (opening happens)
• 22:52 DoorDash Nudge (start the podcast)
• 29:15 Direct Experience (six sense spheres)
• 37:21 Turn Back Within (repent, enoughness)
• 40:37 Maybe Farmer (trust the unfolding)

Transcript

Jacob: 0:00

Your life might seem like a mess right now, but maybe it's a perfect mess, just like it was for me, the perfect mess to bring you inside to find some deep lasting peace that you didn't know was there. As the title suggests, I don't know what I'm doing. But today's my birthday. It's my 42nd birthday, and I thought, oh, what better day to start? I've been wanting to start this podcast for quite a while now, several years. It first took kind of a vague form of just wanting to do something with my voice, a recording of some kind. I drove well, before I started driving uh people around doing Uber, I used to work at a call center. And people would always tell me, You've got a radio voice. You've got a radio voice. Driving people around in Uber rides, same thing. The desire to record or start a podcast kind of came in and out from other people telling me that I should. So everyone's telling me you've got the voice, why don't you do it? Well, what if you have nothing to say, right? So I I kind of farted around and did a couple of podcasts, um, episodes with my brother. Nothing at all serious. We recorded them on our phone, and then I did a couple by myself on my phone, and then I did one with uh my gaming headset on my PC, and that one actually got a couple of hundred listens, and it generated enough money for me to buy a rock star energy drink. And I thought, wow, that's pretty cool. If I can just sit down and talk for 30, 40 minutes to an hour, whatever, and make some money out of it, that's pretty cool. But the thing is, again, I I don't want to sell things to people and I don't want to get into something just for the money aspect. I'm not a money-motivated person. Ironically, one of the only things that can really get to me in life or stress me out is money or financial insecurity. And I've never experienced financial insecurity like I have in the last, I want to say seven years, but really in the last five years, like after COVID started, I have not felt financially secure for at least seven years, but especially the last five. And I eventually did bring home COVID to my wife and my son. Luckily, he showed no symptoms. He was only 14 at the time, something like that. My wife and I got pretty ill, though. We were floored for a couple of days. Our uh sense of smell and taste has never quite gone back. I I still feel weird around garlic. I used to always love it, and now I can barely stomach it. I mean, I it depends, but it was a rough time for me. And you know, that it long story short, I I went through a pretty big uh nightmare period over this last seven years, especially the last five. However, about three years ago, I hit my lowest point, and this is kind of where this is all gonna connect together um to explain why I wanted to start this podcast, what this podcast is gonna be about. About three years ago, I hit my lowest point. I decided to uh after that crappy house that we had to move into uh with the with the bad air conditioner and whatnot, and various other problems which I won't get into. We uh my mom texted me and she said, Why don't you guys move to uh Gilbert, Arizona out here and be with us? Because a lot of my family had moved out to Gilbert and Chandler in the uh Phoenix Metro, basically, little suburbs on the outskirts, you know, of the metro. My mom had called me, um, you know, kind of at the peak of when we were really struggling in in Vegas with my new lower credit score, um, living in the worst part of town. We we decided to pack it up, uh, move out. My mom said, you know, you can come live with me for a couple months while you get on your feet. So three or four months with her. We got our own place. And we were really happy when we came out here, not just because we were closer to family, but because it was a fresh environment from Vegas. It was very similar, you know, one desert to another. It might be slightly hotter here, a little bit more family-oriented out here. And one of the things that immediately started happening was the reality set in about how hard I would have to work in life, kind of from here on out for the in indefinite future. And I'm still in that uh right now, that extreme workload. Uh, typically I have to do at least 50 to 60 hours a week to survive. And maybe one or two weeks in the middle of the month, I can knock it down to 40 hours, 45 hours. But uh my first place that I got was an apartment and it was about $2,200 a month. And if I was late, which I was for many months because it was hard to live, you know, they would bump up the fees to about $2,400, $2,500 a month. So for the first real year of living in Gilbert, I was paying about $2,400 to $2,500 a month in rent alone. My car, uh, because I had gotten into an accident with my last car when I had good credit and I had to get a new car, uh, they would only give me a car with like, I think, 13 or 14% APR. So I'm still paying on that car now, and it's like $472 a month. My insurance kept climbing up and up and up because insurance is also linked to your credit score. So it was like this triple kick in the balls, uh, pardon my language, from rent, uh, paying the uh car bill, the insurance, all these things were climbing up and up and up because of my credit score. Never mind the fact that I was like a 750, just nearing on 800 credit score for my whole life. None of that matters. Overnight, if your credit score goes down, you're done. And I went from no car bill, which was unfortunately destroyed in a in a lift ride. Um, after that car got destroyed, I got this car uh that I'm driving now, which is a Forte, it's a six-speed manual, which I love. You know, it's a little um little four-banger, it's good, pretty good mileage. I love manual transmissions, but I'm paying $472 a month on this bad boy. And the insurance, what when I was getting commercial insurance, so I could do deliveries uh for a living, like DoorDash and things like that, or Uber and Lyft, the commercial coverage for insurance was up to $370. So all these bills were just going through the roof, and and the cost of living for food and things like that went up during the four years, uh 20 to 24. So it's been a big change. And I don't say all this because of woe is me, but this is tying into why I wanted to start this podcast. And okay, so just to recap, I I'd been hearing from people in my sales uh career while it lasted. Um, you should do you should do radio, you should do podcasting. Okay, thank you for the suggestion. You know, I have really no interest in doing that. What would I even talk about? And then I switch over to Uber and Lyft rides, and people in the Uber and Lyft rides are telling me I should do it. I'm like, okay, thank you. You know, but again, what am I going to talk about? I don't know how to do that stuff, you know. I've been in sales my whole life, and now I'm not in sales. Now I don't know what I want to do. So I was doing Uber and Lyft and then eventually moved to um Arizona. Uber and Lyft didn't work out here because the metro is just too big. So I did deliveries, which is nicer because I can stick in uh, you know, my area, which is like Chandler-Gilbert area, you know, the southeast part of Phoenix. But while I was doing deliveries and experiencing this um this immense pressure to survive and work these extreme hours, because before, when I was doing Uber and Lyft, before the cost of living went up, I only had to work about 30 hours a week. And the first year in Gilbert was really rough because of the cost of living. And I had found myself working more than I had ever worked in my life. And like I mentioned earlier, I'm still in that boat. But at the time, I had never experienced uh demand like that before, especially a job like deliveries. I had never been in my car alone for 10 hours, 11 hours a day, sometimes 12 hours a day. And it got to me, you know, like it would anybody. Uh, human beings, they say uh science is finding that we're most productive around 30 hours or less a week. 40 is even pushing it, and I'm sitting here doing 50 to 60 hours on top of being stressed, right? Like I had never experienced stress before, like financial stress, where you're waking up, and some of my listeners can relate to this right now. And if so, this is this might be a good podcast for you because I I would wake up at two or three in the morning thinking about rent, thinking about bills, and waking up almost every day in the red. Because with Uber and Lyft and Gigwork, you know, in general, you can cash out your earnings on a daily basis. So I'd find myself racing each day to cover what was needed and was what bills were going through, and then waking up in the red the next day and racing to get out of the red to avoid overdraft fees. I mean, it was a really sickening thing. Now, some people are really hard on themselves. They say poverty is a mindset. If you're poverty, if you're broke, it's because you're thinking broke. You got to think rich. And that was a that was a problem that I found myself in when I was in network marketing. And that ties into where I was three years ago at my ultra low point. And I'm gonna connect all these dots here for you soon and you know, kind of graduate uh as we move towards the finish line about what this podcast is about and uh who it's for. And it's really gonna be for everyone, but especially those suffering from stress, not just financial stress, but all the stresses of life, you know, fear of death, fear of being homeless, etc. So I found myself in a situation where I had never worked this much before, and I was starting to really feel it. But I forgot, let's go back for a second. Um, when I was mentioning um the mindset of poverty where people, when I was in network marketing, especially, one of the things that they would emphasize was self-help, which which actually ironically ties into where I was three years ago and um how I got to where I am now and eventually starting this podcast. So the self-help books that I read were really terrible for my mental health. They were all kind of pointing to you as if you were responsible for all your successes and you were responsible for all your failures. So I tried like positive affirmations, but uh these self-help books were doing massive, massive psychological harm to me. They were basically telling me that if I wasn't successful, it was it was a problem on my end, like poverty was a mindset. And you know, there there's some maybe nuggets of wisdom in that you don't want to think of yourself as a poor person. Like right now, I am financially very poor. You know, like most Americans, I don't have a few hundred dollars for an emergency. I'm living paycheck to paycheck, you know? And that's not because of a choice I made. My wife and I, we barely spend money as is. So how can we live almost on vapor and then blame myself on top of it for not being, you know, more successful, quote unquote, whatever that means in this country, in this economy, this economic system. So, anyways, I I read a lot of books that were very harmful to my health and um just even doing positive affirmations, you know, your brain's not really believing them. So the whole time you're saying, I'm a successful person, I'm a successful person, I'm a successful person, your brain's like, yeah, right, you're a fucking loser, you're a fucking loser, you're a fucking loser. And that's what your brain is doing when whenever you try to fight against the grain, basically, you're trying to rewrite the program describing who and what you are, and you can't do that, which we're gonna get into. And to tie this together, I was at a low point three years ago, and um oh yes, I'm sorry, the book first. So I read this book, Wherever You Go, There You Are, and it and it started talking about something called mindfulness. Now, when I say that word mindfulness, all kinds of things will pop in your head. Oh, yeah, good way to be productive. Oh, yeah, good way to be better at sales. Oh yeah, mindfulness, good way to be better at this, better at that. What can we use mindfulness for to get better at, right? And there was another book I read called The Power of the Subconscious Mind, which was kind of, I think, also geared for salespeople. But there was something very, very, very interesting in the Power of the Subconscious Mind book that I read. And these books, by the way, I don't advocate for anyone. Wherever you go, there you are. That's a great book. I recommend that book. The power of your subconscious mind, don't recommend that book. Uh, but there was a nugget that I got out of it, which you can get much much better from other books, and it was the nugget of being present with what is, being mindful of what is. There was a particular part where it said, and I'm I'm paraphrasing the book here, but it said, like, for example, when you are brushing your teeth, you are only brushing your teeth. You are feeling the bristles on your teeth, you are feeling the uh the acidic feeling from the fluoride, you know, the rinsing. You are just completely with what is. When you are walking from your car to your job, you are just walking from your car to your job. You are just feeling your feet on the ground, the wind on your skin, whatever sensations are arising in the present moment, that is all that you are with. And that really hit me. That really stuck with me. And I didn't, I didn't realize how much it did at the time, but I found myself kind of curious about that. I was like, wow, that actually feels really good. All the books I've read have not made me feel this good of just being with what is. It was the just the calming down, just the being with what is, looking at my mind, you know, watching my mind, becoming the watcher instead of the doer and the planner and the manipulator and the striver. I was, is that a word, striver? The one striving. It was really just the act of watching. And I didn't realize it at that time either. But notes of it, traces of it were just carrying with me as I as I kept going, stumbling forward essentially. So I get to Gilbert, and I find myself working more than I've ever worked, you know, back into three years ago, my lowest point. And I I got to the point where I was so bummed out about how much time I had to spend working and living in my car that I started to get really down. I started to get really sad. I would start crying on deliveries, I would start pounding on my steering wheel. Like, what is it? What how did I get here? You know, this uh I'm just it's little old me, and I just like to have fun with my friends and spend time with my kids, and you know, I'm I'm I'm a light-hearted fellow. And how did I get here? How do I get out of here? I suddenly felt like I was a um in a in a box, or like stories you hear of people who uh got their leg pinned in an elevator or something, and they had nothing they could do except wait, wait, wait. And I had this dark, dark thought, and it popped in my head out of nowhere, and it said, I would love it if a car would take me out. I would love it if a car would just collide with my car and just take me out, or at least you know, cripple me so I can't do this work anymore, and then the next thing will present itself. I was like, it can't it just can't be this hard all the time. It just can't be. I can't do this. You know, I didn't know what to do. And I texted my friend, my good friend, who's been a he's been a friend of mine since I was a kid, and when that happened, I I I can't even put into words, but it was like in the Sermon on the Mount with Jesus, there's one thing he said where it was uh like blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And that's where I was. I was mourning, I was so sad, and it was this deep sadness, deep, deep, deep. And it's one thing to theorize about it or conceptualize it, but it's another thing to really live it. And I found myself at the bottom of the abyss, at least for me, up until that point in my life. I had never experienced anything lower, and I've experienced plenty of low points in my life. I've had plenty of bouts with depression all the way back to when I was a kid, just being a more sensitive, empathic, um, intuitive. I I don't know how to describe myself as a younger kid. I was very just with what uh what I was I don't know how to describe it. I was very sensitive as a kid, I guess. And I I I can still be sensitive as an adult sometimes. Try not to be overly sensitive, but I was very sensitive in that moment, and I was at my lowest moment, and I gotta tell you guys, it was not a good feeling. It was not good. I I just don't know how to describe it to you. I wish I could. You can see me kind of struggling and flailing here to describe it, but I think I think I've said enough on it. And in that moment, it was like something opened. And it it it allowed me to open up, essentially. I I opened. It was like a flower that was like yearning for the sun, and as soon as the sun hit it, like the petals opened up, right? So there I was working my 50 to 60 hours a week, and somehow, somehow, I had started uh listening to other thinkers, other philosophers, other spiritual people. Because I was really on a search. I was like, what's what is the meaning of all this? What's the purpose of all this? Why am I here? How did I get to this place where I'm working so goddamn much? You know, I was like, part of me was getting frustrated, even. So I opened and I started listening to other thinkers, thinkers of the east, thinkers of the west. You know, I started going to um like home church groups in um in Gilbert, met a lot of good people there, and just really kind of like lifting the hood on my philosophy on life and my spirituality, and what do I believe? Where am I? What what is all this, you know? And I found something, or better, better described, I I would I would suppose I should say something found me. I know some people might wince when they hear that, other people might say, Yeah, of course, but I don't know how else to tell you. Something happened, something found me, and everything started to really, really click. And I started driving my usual 50 to 60 hours, but I was completely with it, I was on board with it, and you know, long story short, three years later, I am in one of the happiest places of my life internally. You know, in Christianity, they might describe it as the peace that surpasses all understanding, and that word understanding in Greek is also understood as comprehension or mind. So a peace that surpasses all mind, all comprehension, all logic. I would say I'm experiencing that right now. You can call it the peace of Christ, the peace of Buddha, the peace of doubt, whatever word you want to insert into this calm and good feeling I have inside right now. I I found it, or it found me. And tying this together, that's why I felt compelled to want to do this podcast. And it didn't come about so simple, actually. It was basically about a year in to me really ceasing my going against the grain and going with what is, that I said to myself, or God, I said, Well, I've got a lot of space inside me now. Uh I'm feeling much better. I'm much in a much happier place than I was before, that's for sure. Much happier than probably I've ever been. And yet I'm still working 50 to 60 hours a week. So, okay, God, okay, universe. What do you want me to do? I have space in me, I have energy in me, I have, you know, enthusiasm. What what do you where do you want me to take this? I don't know what to do. I'm not going back to sales, and I can't stay in gig work for the rest of my life. So what do you want me to do? And I didn't ask it in a what do you want from me? You know, what do you want me to do? Type type ask. I was like, okay, what next? What do you want from me? You know, what what would you like me to do? Please guide my steps. And I and to be honest, I was a little emotional at the time. I was kind of like happy, but also sad. Like, okay, what's the next thing? And and inside of me is also that desire to find something that I can do that will support my family and allow me to do what I love. So I am on this delivery while I'm asking these questions, delivering some alcohol on a DoorDash order. And I drop the alcohol off, I get the signature from the lady because you got to show your ID, and I'm leaving. And um, you know, a couple minutes driving away from the lady's house, and with DoorDash, you can text your driver after you've dropped something off. So she texts me and she says, Hey, uh, this might be out of place, but have you ever thought about doing a podcast? You have a very beautiful voice, something to that effect, and she's like, I just wanted to put that out there for you. Now I was cr literally crying out to you can call him, her, it god, infinite intelligence, whatever word you have for what this all is, I was crying out to that on the way to her house. On the way out, I got a message. Have you ever thought about doing the podcast? Now I've heard that many times before, like I told you guys, the passengers, people in my sales, you know, and I it's danced on my mind and I have dabbled in it, but I had never had somebody um kind of directly tell me to do it as a suggestion immediately after I was like literally crying uh, you know, about what to do with my life. And it would be at least a year, year and a half after that before I finally sat down and recorded this episode. And I had recorded several episodes before this, but I was never happy with them. I because this space that I've now found in myself that I want to share with other people is not like a teacher-student relationship type thing. And I just wanted to share or start a podcast to share things that have really inspired me over the last three years that I want to share because I have been on fire for the last three years. Like when I tell you I was at my lowest place and it opened me up, and I started listening to philosophers and other thinkers, I don't mean that in a casual way. I mean I was literally doused in gasoline and somebody threw a match on me and I'm screaming in flames right now, always like on fire for this shit. Excuse my language. But I literally eat, sleep, and drink uh the study of the mind, of philosophy, of religion, various religions, spiritual practices, and I'm studying all of them, not with the intent of proving one correct or the other wrong. I am more interested in what common themes they all share. And I will tell you this with absolute sincerity: that I have learned that all of the spiritual paths do say the same thing in various ways. And that is going to be one of the major themes of this show is what is the juice and the nectar that they're all bringing to the table that has been perhaps misrepresented, misunderstood, misarticulated, maybe weaponized. There is a lot of stuff that has come with these teachings. Because the people that bring these teachings to us, they do it in a fresh and spontaneous way. You know, to use the words of Jesus, let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth. You know, he just acted out of his center, his if you will, his empty space inside, his emptiness, as the Buddhists like to say, which Westerners wince at when they hear emptiness, but it's not it's not like a i i if you're a western listening to this and you hear emptiness and you wince, don't worry. It's not like you think. It's the most beautiful thing ever. And it's the same thing that Jesus taught and that all these thinkers taught. But what happens after these teachers are teach is that people fall madly in love with them and they start to build up beautiful uh surrounding garments and um ramparts and oh, what's the word? Um I mean, you've seen the the churches and cathedrals that have been built built through the millennia, you know. I mean, the it it's a serious thing because they're talking about your source, where you come from, what you are, because you are not a little separate thing from this whole universe. You are actually a distinct part of it, you're not a separate part of it. Just as say an ocean has waves, the wave in the ocean is not separate from the ocean. When you look at a wave, you don't go, oh, that's a wave, and then there's the ocean kind of underneath the wave. You are exactly like that. You cannot be separated from this whole thing that we call life or the universe. And when you really understand that and you go deep down into it, uh it changes you in a profound way, and it it goes beyond understanding it because there may be people listening to this who hear what I'm saying and it rings a bell of truth inside of you automatically. You just you just know it's true, and it feels good to hear someone say it and you and you say, Yeah, that that that's that's it, man. Yeah. It's one thing to get it like that on a conceptual level, but it's another thing when you start living it on a moment-to-moment-to-moment basis. And that is what trust is all about. Because if I tell you while you're listening to this podcast, I want you to listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth, but not try to make sense of them. Let your brain do that. It happens automatically. You don't have to try to make it happen. If you're in your car, I want you to feel the seat underneath you. I want you to feel what does the steering wheel feel like. And don't describe it in words, because words are slow and clunky. It's like looking at binary code instead of looking at what the code actually is as represented on your computer screen after it's been processed by your CBU. I want you to just feel directly a direct experience with what is. Maybe you are outside running or walking and you're feeling the morning air on your face, and you hear the birds singing. Whatever that is, Be with that completely. The first thing that you're going to notice as you start to practice this is that your mind is going to start tugging you back. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Okay, your seat, that's great and all. Your steering wheel, that feels good and all, but we better start thinking here. We better start thinking about that bill. We better start thinking about what we're going to say to the boss, why the project's not done yet, this, that, and the other. The brain is going to fight you to come back up. Now, this is not to say that thinking is a bad thing that you should not do and you should avoid at all costs. I'm not saying that at all. In fact, when thoughts do come, it's important that you be with those as well, because those you could call your sixth sense. You've got your five regular senses, which is sight, what you can see, sounds, what you can hear, taste, obviously, what you put in your mouth, your tongue, your taste buds, smell, and of course, touch, tactile sensation. And of course, the sixth one we could say are mental projections or images or mind activity. Those are the only six things that are ever at any time happening in your life. At any time. It's like uh guitar hero, if you if you've ever played that game, they got the six notes on the bottom, I think it's six notes, and they just play little melodies. Well, that's exactly what your life is. And it's not to reduce it, but it's to look at it. The way you as a human interact with life is through the six sense spheres. The five in the material world and the six you could say is in the mind, but they are six things coming at you. So when I say feel the seat beneath you wherever you're sitting, or the your feet if you're walking, or the steering wheel if you're in your car, or the sounds coming to your ears right now from me, to be with those completely. And if on occasion a thought comes, which it definitely will, not just on occasion, but constantly, relentlessly, to be with the thought as well. See, thoughts are not a bad thing, but thoughts that you are not aware of, ooh, now there's where we get into trouble. Your thoughts are not you. Your thoughts think themselves, they happen of their own accord. Unless you are completely with them, you are lost. And to be in the moment with what is takes a trust. In fact, it is the ultimate form of trust to be with what is because try it. You'll see very quickly the brain, even before you start thinking, you'll start to notice the pull. Oh, I'm about to think. Ooh, and then there's a thought, and it'll take you away. And without even realizing it, you've gotten on a bus and you don't know where it's taking you. It could be how many times have you had a thought of somebody confronting you just randomly? Like you're about to go into Starbucks, and then your brain says, Oh, what if this guy cuts me in line? Or uh, you know, this person does this to me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this back to him, and then he might do this, and then I'll say, Oh, I'm gonna have my response planned for him, I'm gonna say this. And before you know it, you're off to the races with this whole conflict that you're playing out in your mind. Or worse, what if a thought pops into your head that says, I'm a loser, I'm a nobody, nobody cares about me? Do I even really care about anyone else? You see, these thoughts happen of themselves. They think themselves, and then you identify with the thought, and you say, Yeah, that that thought, that's me. I'm not asking you to change your thoughts, I'm not asking you to stop your thoughts, I'm simply asking you to to notice them. And the more you practice, the more you'll notice them. And the more you notice things, the more that your life starts to change. And you'll notice in all the spiritual traditions the emphasis is on letting go. It's on relaxing, it's uh it's on ceasing your striving to be with completely with what is. Buddhism, for example, the Buddha, Buddha means one who is awake. So Buddhism is is an ism about awakefulness. And you'll notice that's what Jesus taught too. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said, This I say to you, I say to all. Stay awake. The title of the podcast is Standing Nowhere, and that is a metaphor for standing on a concept. If you are standing on any concept, you are lost because all concepts ultimately fall utterly short of describing reality. Reality is and you can't give that a name. Reality is and you can't name that. You can say clap, clap, clap, but that's not. Do you see how completely different they are? So any concept you have in your skull about what's going on ultimately is false and will fail you and will not keep you warm at night. So the ultimate form of trust, which is another word of faith for faith, is to trust exactly what you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or think right now, that is the only truth there is, and that is the only thing you can trust. But I'm here to say that you can trust that. So if me, if me telling you that somehow you're still holding on in the back of your mind that can I trust it though? Can I do I really know what's gonna happen to me after yes. You can trust it. After all, you are it. You came out of it and you have fun coming out of it and going back to it, coming out of it and going back to it. Up and down. Everything is undulating in this universe. Out of the silence comes sound, comes light, comes life. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this first episode, and rest assured, this is going to be the most different episode, probably of the entire bunch. It was just a little bit of a background on me, a little bit in my headspace, where I started, where I'm at now, and just a little taste before we close. I will be deep diving into all kinds of things that I think um you will find interesting, or maybe not. Some people are not ready to hear these things yet. You know, the translation of the word repent in old Hebrew is to turn back. And I think that relates to when we're born, we go out into the world, we get obsessed with the material things, all the shiny dancing things in the world. And it's not like they're bad things or that we have to shun them, but at a certain point you find that they do not fulfill you at all in any way, only temporarily, and then you're on to the next thing. How many times do you see junk piles outside of people's houses on trash collect you know, junk days, big bulk days for trash and people in neighborhoods, just hordes of junk. In the West, we're just converting as much material into junk as fast as possible, and none of it fulfills. It's like the end of that movie WALL-E, the whole planet's full of junk, right? Now I'm not I'm not putting down material things, but I am telling you, if you have not figured it out yet, they will absolutely never bring you lasting joy and happiness. And you'll find out there's a difference between joy and pleasure. Between happiness and pleasure. It doesn't mean that you have to be an ascetic monk and r renounce everything, but you might want to loosen your grip on it a little bit and stand nowhere. Be with what is for those who have ears to hear, hear. Basically, if you're ready to hear this message, this podcast will find you when it's supposed to. And it's a work in progress. I'm learning about these things myself, but I am without question on fire for it. I think part of the reason I've delayed this podcast is to see if my interest would wane. How many times have I gotten interested in something in my life only to abandon it uh out of lack of interest? But here I am, three years later, still digesting and reading as much material on the stuff as I can. It it very much interests me. And it in a way that I want to relay it to other people because there are practices you can do. You can call them spiritual, or you can just call them practices. The word spirit simply means breath. So take for that what you know, take from that what you will, but we're going to be talking about all kinds of things. I'll be interviewing people eventually, ideally, uh great thinkers like this, because there is infinite space inside of you, infinite peace, infinite joy, infinite bliss, and all you have to do is look within, to turn back and look within, which is the actual original definition of the word repent. Another word that's been co-opted by modern interpretation to mean feel guilty about. Oh, you should repent. You should repent. You a bad boy. You gotta repent. No. It means to come back home to look inside of you. You've looked everywhere outside. Now let's look inside, and you might just find that you are really part of the whole thing. And that what you thought was a bad event in your life might actually be a blessing. I'll end on a parable. And then we can go our separate ways. And I'm I'm gonna be recording a couple more episodes, but this will be my first episode on my birthday here, turning 42. I'm in my seventh cycle of my seven-year cycles here. So uh here's the parable. A farmer and the neighbor. So the farmer wakes up and goes outside to find his horse, one of his best horses, has run away. The neighbor, uh, looking over says, I'm sorry, brother, that's that's really too bad. And the farmer says, Maybe. The next day he awakens to find that the horse has returned and it has another horse with it. The neighbor, seeing this, said, Brother, that's wonderful. Congrats. And the farmer says, Maybe. Later that day, the farmer's son is trying to tame the new wild horse that the other horse brought home. The horse bucks him off and he breaks his leg. The neighbor says, That's terrible. And the farmer says, Maybe. The following morning, the army is going through his territory conscripting young soldiers, but they can't recruit his son because his leg is broken. The neighbor says, That's wonderful. The farmer says, Maybe. So with that, I'll leave you guys. Don't judge a book by its cover. Your life might seem like a mess right now, but maybe it's a perfect mess, just like it was for me, the perfect mess to bring you inside to find some deep lasting peace that you didn't know was there. Anyways, this has been the Standing Nowhere Podcast episode one. I am your host, Jacob, and I'm signing out. Please like and subscribe and do all the things that you're supposed to do that I don't know what I'm supposed to say to get you to come back. I had to do it. I kept I kept this episode procrastinating long enough, and I finally did it. And you know what? This episode is not perfect. There's probably some lung parts. There's probably a lot of people who tuned out halfway, but I did it, gosh darn it. And I'm gonna try to get better at it for you guys and for myself, and uh see if I can make this into a full-time gig for me, or at least a passion of love on the side. And either way, I am okay, and I will be okay, even if I have to work 55, 60 hours a week for the rest of my life. That's okay. I'm happy, very happy, and I love you guys and blessings.

Music: 42:58

This voice my feel like the stuff from standing now for a while. No heroes, no headlines, no promises, just a whisper that won't be afraid, stand down nowhere feels like home. No facts to wave no need to wrong. Silence speaks louder than more because I've never felt so anxious. The clock's always in the heavens stop walking just yes, stand in no wise and free. No chains, no name, no dish wise to hear nothing.