My Own Worst Enemy - 1112

On this episode of The Thought Shower, Intern John talks about not being your own worst enemy

Intern John's "Chuy Forever" is a weekend of comedy shows 6/20 & 6/21 in Arlington, Va benefitting Warrior Canine Connection. They train puppies to be service animals for veterans! Tickets are on sale now, InternJohnComedy.com

Every week Intern John discusses adulting, dating, radio life, and more! You can follow Intern John on social media: @InternJohnRadio. You can listen to past episodes at TheThoughtShower.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And a happy Wednesday friend. Welcome to the thought shower.
Interned John is my name. It's been a kind of
crazy last twenty four hour. It's been doing some domestic
had bliss things. So I had this kind of like
small tree in front of my place that I guess
started to kind of die. Maybe it's like a year ago,

(00:23):
but a new tree started to shoot through it, if
that makes sense. So yesterday I was getting back from
walking skittles and something told me I should check this tree.
I went to look in. The new tree looked like
if you sneezed on it, it was gonna fall over.
And so what I did was took my hands and
pulled it apart, like one fell like quick yank fell apart.

(00:49):
The thing was probably ten feet tall, not that wide though,
and then I had to spend the next hour hour
and a half cutting it down into small pieces to
put in bags for I guess the recycling comes and
gets it. But now I'm stuck where it's like, what
do I do now? Because I got the damn a
show a we're gonna be I'm sure nothing but helpful.

(01:10):
So I think I need to get like a tree
removal person or yeah, service to come and remove the tree,
and I guess make it a stump and then hopefully
make a grass, which I don't really mind because the
tree was like a crab apple tree, I think, so
like they were pains in the ass and they were
sticky and they drew bees. It's just you know, sometimes

(01:32):
you think you're you're almost close to getting ahead in life, right,
and that's when the bills come. Like the first car
I ever bought here, I drove it into the ground
like I had it for golley eight years maybe, and
you know, cracked one hundred thousand miles. Finally paid it
off in like the next week. She died. And I

(01:56):
think at the time the car was worth like two
grand maybe, and they'rein, give me seven for it the dealership.
No I lied, it was given me six to repair it,
or they give me seven the dealership. And I was like,
all right, there we go. But it is like anytime
he's almost kind of have money saved, that's when life
goes ha, let me take that, so uh, it might

(02:19):
be time to get that. And also like a landscaper,
it's because I don't have a green thumb, and it's
one of those things where I don't really have a
big backyard. I had a perfect, chewy sized backyard where
and like for skinlls just to let him out quickly,
perfect for that size. So it's not really big enough
to do some lavish project. And also I just don't care,

(02:41):
you know, like if gardening's your thing, love you for it.
It just for me, it's never been like a I
like this, Like it's not like stress relieving for me.
It's more of a pain in the ass. I think
if I had bigger lawn and was mowing it with
a mower, that might be more therapeutic. I do like

(03:02):
doing that stuff, but I have like a weed whacker,
you know what I mean. So it's never been like
a huh, it's like, all right, maybe this is the
sign to get somebody to do it. So that has
been my last twenty four hours. We are all the
week and a half away from the comedy shows. Next Friday,
next Saturday, June twentieth, June twenty first Arlington Draft House.

(03:23):
Get the last tickets. It's gonna be the last show too.
We are stepping away. I don't know why that was weird.
I guess it's just kind of an emotional thought that
this is this is how we go out, which I
think is a good thing. I really do. I think
it feels weird already doing it without Chewy, so I

(03:45):
think this is the perfect kind of spots about. And
that's the thing too, when it comes to comedy. The
original goal was to raise money for the Fisher House.
And then it was like, all right, so we've done that,
let's take it on the road. Okay, we did that.
Let's the Warrant Theater. We did that twice. Let's raise
twenty five thousand, fifty seventy five hundred. So all the

(04:07):
goals for comedy have been hit. And now it's like,
this is the perfect way to say goodbye. So Internshohncomedy
dot com cannot wait to see there. Let me get
to this for your Wednesday as well. The ways you're
delusional about your own life, oh boy, Starting with you
confuse safety with happiness. You may not feel joy, but

(04:28):
you're not in danger, so you assume everything's fine. Emotional numbings,
a mental emotional process of shutting out feelings, may be
experienced as deficits of emotional responses or reactivity. I think
that's fair, they say it's a coping mechanism when deal
a trauma, stressed depression, or anxiety. Just because you're not
panicking doesn't mean you're fulfilled. We confuse the absence of

(04:51):
chaos with a presence of meaning, where they say a
flat line is in a heartbeat. Yeah, I do think
that also to me. You know, you gotta take a risk,
you just do. The great nineteen eighty hockey coach Herb
Brooks once said risk something or forever sit with your dreams.
I think that's true. You can be comfortable sitting, you know, idly,

(05:14):
it doesn't mean you're happy though. You mistake productivity for progress.
I mean I talked about this several times, but we
often stay busy to avoid deeper truths. You can be
highly productive at avoiding your purpose, which is what's keeping
you stuck. I would also say, too, we confuse like
just because you're doing a lot of stuff doesn't quite

(05:36):
mean to getting further. I mean, if we're gonna use
a gym thing, or even back to the gardening, I
could be doing a lot of work in the garden,
if not planning seed or watering it, it doesn't quite matter.
You know, you think settling is being mature. Oh boy.
We romanticize compromise as adulthood, but often it's a story

(05:57):
we tell to avoid disappointment. I think that's fair, but
it's also you know, that's a double edged sword, right
Like in relationships, should you ever settle? I don't quite
think so. I don't think that's the way to go.
Don't settle a relationship because it's the adult thing to do.

(06:17):
If you found your person, you're happy. To me, that's
quite different. You know, if you define success with somebody
else's metric. I've been trying to preach this for a
long time. So they say, you tell yourself you're winning
because you hit benchmarks, you know, whether it's marriage, house, promotion.
They say, relying on external benchmarks like that it define

(06:40):
success can lead to pursuing goals don't reflect your values
or desires. I would also say that it's it's unfair
to compare yourself to that because you've had different as
circumstances than everybody else. I also have always said, you
don't know really what's going on somebody else's life. You know,

(07:02):
we only post the highlights, so you rarely see the
person that you're you know, idolizing or or oh I
wish you had their life. You don't see them being miserable.
They're only posting the good stuff. If you tell yourself
you've missed the boat, they say the life feels logical,
but it's built on myth. That meaning has an expiration date.
Age becomes socially acceptable excuse for not starting. But the

(07:24):
clock you're following was built by someone else. Too late's
often code for too scared. I think that to me
if I didn't want to do radio anymore. You know,
half my life has been at radio. I think that
if I was really unhappy, would I say just because

(07:47):
I put so much into it? Well, I don't know
if we're going by logic. If half my life's been here,
you know, I'm maybe a core of it. Next, do
I want to be miserable for that quarter? I don't know.
I think like to me, and it might just be
the mid West of me, I'd rather be happy personally,
you know, I think to me, like, yeah, I'd rather

(08:08):
do that. I felt that too sometimes with dating, where
it's like you have a long term relationship and it's like, oh, shoot,
was that the one? Am I gonna be single forever?
And it's like, well, you know, we weren't really happy
towards the end of that relationship, so we probably wouldn't
have been happy the rest of the time. I get

(08:30):
to one more. You assumed. You assume being liked means
you're valued. Damn, people praise you, you're seeing as nice,
but approval as a poor substitute for alignment. You might
be molding yourself into the patable version of you. Being
adored doesn't mean being authentic. I would also say too,

(08:50):
I think that, uh, sometimes in life there's people who
will like you because they don't see you as a threat.
You know, they'll like you at work, they'll like you,
uh to go out with you because they don't see
you as a threat. They see it as like you're
somebody's there who they can be theirself. You'll make them
look better, and so you're not really valued that way

(09:12):
as a person. You're valued in ay, they're gonna make
me look good subconsciously. I think that's you know, is
it icky? Yeah? I think that's true. They say sometimes
the most praised version of you is also the most performative.
I mean, that's kind of ironic given what I do
for a living. Although I do think that intern John

(09:33):
and John are essentially the same thing, uh, same thing,
same person. Like. The only real difference between me on
the air and me in real life is me on
the air, I'm more extroverted, you know what I mean.
I'm more outgoing because I have to be me off
the air. I like to observe, like to kind of
sit back, relax, enjoy the show, so to speak. I

(09:57):
would you have a great Wednesday. Also, hope this is
again next Friday and Saturday. I mean a lot to
see at the comedy shows. Internshipon comedy dot Com. We'll
see you Friday. It's thought Shower.