The Fear Is the Story

Jacob thought the reason he hadn't done more interviews was scheduling. But one night it hit him — it wasn't really the schedule. It was fear. Not fear of talking to people, but fear of what they might bring with them. Grief. Pain. Loss. Truth.

In this episode, he traces that fear back to a Lyft ride in Las Vegas he's never forgotten — a stranger gets in the car, bursts into tears, and shares a story of devastating loss. From there, Jacob reflects on compassion, what it really means to suffer with another person, and why this may be exactly where Standing Nowhere is meant to go next. Closes with a reading from Osho.

Transcript

The Man in the Backseat

Compassion Means to Suffer Together

Where Standing Nowhere Is Going Next

Jacob 0:15

What is fear? Fear is always with us, isn't it? Is it pointing to something that we should avoid or head towards directly? I thought about this recently in regards to the podcast. I've been wanting to interview people since before the podcast started. All I've wanted to do was interview people. I had all these ideas of people I would interview, and I still have plenty of interviews lined up eventually, but I haven't put them into a concrete date yet. And I thought, what is it that's the problem? Well, to be fair, my schedule is extremely busy. Yes. I just came off of two 60-hour week work weeks back to back. So there is a schedule constraint, but for some reason it still feels like it's not that. It's me. And I had this revelation when I was in bed the other day and just thinking about things, it dawned on me that I am afraid of doing interviews. Not in a sense of reaching out to people and actually speaking with people. For me, that's easy. That comes naturally. I love talking to people, but the fear is the story that they're going to tell me when they share their pain with me, when they trust me with their story. It's a little intimidating. Let me take you back. It must have been 2018 or 2019. I was driving Lyft, Lyft and Uber, driving people around. I was picking up somebody from a medical facility, and Lyft demanded that drivers wait up to ten minutes for the person to come outside to get in the car. Well, this person, they kept me waiting the full ten minutes. And I could just feel my anger creeping up. At the end of the 10 minutes, you can cancel and let the customer rebook it, and they would compensate you with$10 for your lost time. So I'm coming up on the 10-minute mark, a little frustrated or very frustrated, that this guy has the audacity to make me wait, and then just at the 10-minute marker, the door opens. And this little old man comes shuffling out of the building. And he's taking his time walking up to the car. And that just makes me more angry watching how slow he he was moving. He finally gets into the car. And I'm hot at this point. Really hot. I mark him as picked up, and as always, I confirm the destination with him. You're going to XYZ Street? Yes. Okay. So I confirm the address with him, we start moving, and within a few moments, he bursts into tears. Just crying profusely. At this point I feel. I feel a little guilty for being mad at him. I'm starting to put two and two together. He came out of a medical facility. He's crying. He must have gotten some bad news. Well, he did get some bad news, and it wasn't regarding him. It was regarding his son. I said, Sir, are you okay? And he responds by saying, My son just died. And it felt like I got punched in the chest really hard. It took the wind out of me. Moments ago, I am impatient, frustrated, and now I feel like a jerk. A real jerk. This man just lost his child. I say, I'm so sorry to hear that, sir. I didn't know what to say, except that I'm sorry for your loss. And he started to speak, and he said, This is the second son that I have now lost. And he's just crying and crying and crying. And I'm like, I don't know what to say. I started crying myself. It was just the saddest experience I'd ever been through. And he says, I haven't spoken to my son in over a year. We had a falling out. He said, My first son died in a motorcycle crash. And as devastating as that was, my son, my second son, decided to purchase a motorcycle against my wishes, and we had a huge argument and a huge falling out, and I haven't spoken to him for a year. I said, How could you buy a motorcycle after your brother has just died from a motorcycle crash? How could you do this to me? So they didn't speak for a year. And before they could speak again and patch things up, this second son who purchased a motorcycle against his father's wishes, also died in a motorcycle accident. So this man lost two of his children from motorcycle crashes. This is back when I lived in Vegas, and I felt so sad for him. I thought, what are the odds of losing two children from motorcycle accidents? And I felt almost a sense of vertigo. Like reality was just spinning. That's one of the things they don't warn you about when you are driving Uber and Lyft, is you're gonna hear real stories from people. I could make a whole segment for this podcast just on stories I've heard in the past driving Uber and Lyft. And this is just one of many, but it was one of the sadder ones that stuck with me. And it reminded me never to judge reality on its face because you have no idea what the other person is going through. You don't have a clue. So it's just a good practice to be as nice as possible to everyone you meet, to love your neighbor as yourself because you don't know what they're going through at any given moment. And never mind death, they could be going through extreme stress at their job. And this is also a good reason not to project your situation onto other people. Imagine how easy it would be to make an excuse as to why you are bitter or angry towards everyone because your life didn't work out the way you wanted it to. All of us could pull that card if we wanted to. Life is not always easy. Sometimes it's extremely hard and extremely unfair. The last thing I want to do is to make someone's day worse. And here I am as a podcast host from the beginning, wanting to do the vast majority of my episodes as interviews, and yet that's not the reality. Because I am, if I'm honest, truthfully, I'm a little bit afraid of some of the stories that I am going to hear on this podcast. I've opened up quite a bit about myself, but I've only had about five, I think, five interviews thus far, and we're coming up on episode 40. And that's a major fear of mine that I want to overcome. Yes, my schedule is busy, but I need to challenge myself and push myself to the next level. Like I mentioned, I I did 60 hours a week each week the last two weeks. So I have been a little extra busy right now, but my schedule is returning back to its usual 50 hours a week. So that that's going to give me an extra 10 hours where I can find time to get some interviews in and get them done. But it involves me facing my fear and opening up to the pain of others. And when it comes to opening ourselves up to the pain of others, that is the very definition of compassion. In fact, that's what the word means to suffer together. Open yourself up and feel what the other person is feeling completely. Not in a form of pity. That's too bad. Hope it gets better for you. But to be fully with, not just empathizing with, but experiencing what the other person is experiencing. Not to try to fix it, but just to experience it with them. Out of that may come spontaneously help from you or a way that you can help them fix it, but not all the time is that going to be the case. Like the man that I picked up in that lift ride, I cannot bring his son back to life. And I can't even make him feel better through anything of my own. The only thing I could do was to be a space for him during that ride, to listen to him fully and embrace what he was feeling. And the only thing I could do was just cry because it was so sad. If you could hear this man's crying and wailing in the car, you would have it just man. And here I am creating a space for people to come here and speak about these challenges that they're facing in life. These immense challenges and dark valleys that they've been through, so that we can experience it together with them and derive the wisdom or experience the wisdom that they've derived out of those situations. And it's not easy. And I I suppose it was somewhat buried down, and I did have some good excuses initially, as the title of my first episode, I don't know what I'm doing, is very much true. That was my first fear, is starting this podcast because I didn't know how to do a podcast. There was endless possibilities in my mind about where to take the podcast, um, how to start the podcast. You know, I had to cross all my T's, dot all my I's, everything had to be perfect. And it just kept delaying it and delaying it and delaying it until my 42nd birthday came along, and the realization hit that I am going to die someday. Time is ticking. I've got to act, and I've got to act now. So I sat down and recorded that episode, and it was messy and it was imperfect, but it was my first episode. And since then, I've learned how to edit, how to speak a little bit better, I would hope. I've got a few practice episodes with guests. My friends and my family were so gracious enough to trust me with their stories and come on here and share a little bit about their lives and their experiences. And I am forever grateful to them and for the future guests that I have lined up. But I just wanted to talk a little bit today about fear and the fear that I'm going through. Where I started with fear and this podcast, and where I am now. I am afraid a little bit to get on camera as well. I've been I got into this podcast hoping it would be audio and strictly audio and conversations with people, and I'm learning that in the current reality of today's internet, that just isn't the case. Uh a lot of people like video to go with the audio. So I've been experimenting with certain things and placeholders to get that going, but I need to get on camera. I need to get me and a guest on camera because that's what a lot of people like, and I'm working on that as well. So I want to let you guys know that this podcast is hopefully going to be in a state of continual growth throughout its duration, from where I started to where I am now and the next phase and beyond. In the immediate future, I am focused on interviews. If you would like to talk to me and share some experiences that you've had in your life, please don't hesitate to reach out. I would love to book an hour with you so that you can do that. So that myself and the listeners can hear your story. But that's just a little bit about where I'm at right now and where the show is going. I didn't have much planned for this week other than, you know, just to sort of talk about where I am. Um my schedule is extremely busy, but if I don't carve out a little moment on my lunch break, or a little moment like right now, uh, before my shift starts for the day here in the morning, I will not get to make an episode this week. So I wanted to carve out something, and right now, that little something looks like fear. And I feel like fear is always a good pointer to where I need to be going, both personally and with the podcasts. And the two are pretty much intertwined in my case. But I do have to get to work now, and I uh want you guys to know that longer, uh more interview-driven episodes will be coming, so expect that in the future. You guys have been very kind and supportive to me, both in the comments and uh messages, so I appreciate that. It is fun to interact with the community. So I will close out now with a little reading from Osho. He says that the way of the heart is the way of courage. It is to live in insecurity, it is to live in love and trust. It is to move in the unknown. It is leaving the past and allowing the future to be. Thank you for tuning in. I will see you guys next week.