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CONVERSATION LESSON

APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING

Dan: Yo Aaron, how you doing?

Aaron: I’m doing pretty good, man. I’m feeling good these days. I’ve beenDan: Feeling lucky?

Aaron: Yeah, actually. I feel a little lucky.

Dan: What’s going good in your life?

Aaron: Well I’m getting in shape. I’m taking care of my health. I’ve been juicing, been squeezing some green juice from organic sources.

Dan: Nice.

Aaron: I’ve been doing lots of jogging, getting in shape. I’m running a half marathon next week. So …

Dan: Half marathon!

Aaron: Yeah, I’m getting some sleep, I mean I’m doing alright. How about you?

You feeling lucky?

Dan: Well, you know, I kinda think a half marathon is a little bit … it’s a little wimpy.

Aaron: You think I should beDan: Why half? I know you have a theory about why it’s actually quite a lot of work, maybe you can enlighten everybody?

Aaron: What do you mean?

Dan: Well …

Aaron: You said it wasDan: You were once telling me that a half marathon is essentially the same as a full marathon.

Aaron: Oh, I see what you mean. Well yeah, because I run so slowly. The world class runners, they run a full marathon in two hours. And I run a half marathon in two hours. So we’re both sort of exerting the same amount of energy, same amount of effort, so in essence I’m running a full marathon even though I’m running a half marathon, in terms of effort. You know what I mean?

Dan: So by this logic, if I take two hours to walk from my bedroom to the sofa, I’m pretty much a marathon runner as well.

Aaron: Exactly. You’re a marathon runner.

Dan: It’s all about the timeAaron: That’s right.

Dan: That you’re exerting yourself. It’s not really about how much you run.

Aaron: No, but it’s effort. I mean, come on. I’m struggling to run two hours. It’s a lot of pain and suffering. It feels good though. It does feel good.

Dan: Yeah, you’re working hard just like those Olympic athletes.

Aaron: Yeah and you don’t give up because along the way you experience pain and you experience the desire to stop or the desire to quit and you’ve just got to let go of that and work through it. So it’s a good exercise.

Dan: I bet there’s some parallels with this story and the temporary suffering that you go through when you’re running. I bet you have to reframe that or just step outside of it.

Aaron: Oh, you totally do, otherwise you can’t get through it.

Dan: And not get involved in it.

Aaron: Oh absolutely. You’ve got to just rise above it, don’t get caught in it, and see it as a temporary thing that you just got to put up with until you get to your goal.

Dan: Yeah. There’s a lot of different ways you can interpret the way this farmer experienced so called superficially good things.

Aaron: Yes.

Dan: And bad things or suffering.

Aaron: Right.

Dan: One of those could be that he’s just stepping outside of that framework of labeling what is good and what is bad.

Aaron: Right.

Dan: Which is something that farmers actually have to do in reality. Well, I don’t know. I’m sure there are farmers that do get pulled into very real suffering of when there’s a drought and there’s no rain and their crops fail.

Aaron: Right.

Dan: They could lose their farm. Their family could really suffer. I’m sure there are some stories where it’s not so easy to just step outside of what’s happening. But in general, I think the farmers deal with cycles of good and bad when they’re growing. They’ve got good seasons where-

Aaron: Absolutely.

Dan: They’ve got harvest and then they have times of plenty and times of lean.

Aaron: Yeah, I think we all do. I mean, certainly farmers maybe it’s more extreme in terms of their livelihood. But yeah, we all go through that. I think that ability to kind of be aware that something that initially seems bad could be good, and something that initially seems good could be actually negative. That, to me, is the mark of wisdom. It’s that ability to sort of be aware that your initial labeling of, oh that’s great, that’s great news. It’s like, okay, it’s great news on the surface but it could be bad, and vice versa. I think that’s a mark of wisdom.

Dan: Right. Or that there’s both good and bad in everything.

Aaron: Yes.

Dan: Which is the … this is a Taoist story and we have the Taoist symbol of yin yang, which has the way of black and white moving in this circular pattern. Within the black there’s a little spot of white and in the white there’s a little spot of black.

So yeah, I guess that’s another level of the story. Maybe the farmer does recognize that he lost his horse and that that is a bad thing on one level.

Aaron: Right.

Dan: But within that, there’s something good, even if those eight horses don’t come back.

Aaron: Right. Yeah, it’s sort of like the farmer has more of a long-term view.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: He’s not so concerned with the present moment. He’s waiting. He’s patient.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: They say patience is a virtue.

Dan: But at the same time, we have to live in this world, so we have to be … it seems like you need some balance between having the perspective of the farmer, but also living in reality, which means being the neighbor and celebrating things that, even if there might be some bad that results from them or some good that results from the tragedy, how do you live in this world if you can’t celebrate the good things.

Aaron: Yeah, of course.

Dan: And cry over the bad things.

Aaron: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got to do that.

Dan: Are you more of the farmer or the neighbor?

Aaron: I don’t know, a little of both. I’d like to think that I can be the farmer in times of good and bad. It’s harder actually in times of good because it’s so easy to get caught up in the good times because they feel good.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: And spend money and let loose, even though that could be leading to something quite negative. I don’t know. In my life I haven’t had any major setbacks and I haven’t had any major life changing good things happen that have led to something bad. So for me, the whole lesson of blessings in disguise comes in a more minor form on a daily basis, on the little things in life that we tend to not be so aware of.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Little things like, okay you didn’t get the job. You got rejected from a job interview that you desperately wanted. Actually, I read a story about this guy who desperately wanted this job and he thought he was gonna get it because he was fully qualified for it and it was his dream job. Then he applied for the interview and they sent him a letter saying that he didn’t get the interview and he was devastated. He couldn’t understand why he didn’t get it. It turned out that the date of his interview was September 11th, 2001 and the place of his interview was in the World Trade Center. So that isDan: Oh, so he didn’t get the interview.

Aaron: He didn’t get the interview.

Dan: He didn’t get to the interview stage, which saved his life.

Aaron: Had he got the interview he might not be alive today.

Dan: Right.

Aaron: So, that’s a twist of fate sort of thing. It’s like a fate kind of thing. That’s not a daily thing. That’s like a special thing. In his case, yeah that was very extraordinary, but in most people’s cases we get upset when we don’t get the job interview. Or if we do go on the interview and we get turned down, we don’t get the job we wanted but it leads to other opportunities. So the trick, the wisdom trick, is to know in that moment, that when you don’t get it, it’s like okay I didn’t get it. Okay, yeah it doesn’t feel good, but hey this is an opportunity to get something better.

Aaron: Or the story of, let’s say, someone who has a girlfriend and the girlfriend gets pregnant and the guy doesn’t want the child at all and gets really depressed about it and upset about it but his girlfriend wants the child. It turns out several years down the road it’s the best thing that ever happened to him. He realized that he’s a father now and he cares for someone else and it’s changed his life. It’s made him more responsible and focused on his career. It’s just done so many good things for him, but yet had he had the choice, he never would have taken that. It turned out to be something great for him.

Aaron: There’s so many examples in life of things that seem bad, seem negative.

In that moment, if we can understand that this could be an opportunity. It’s like okay, this feels bad, I feel terrible about it, but where’s the opportunity in it.

There’s got to be an opportunity here. There always is. There must be an opportunity in everything.

Dan: Yeah, and another level of that story would be the opportunity is to train ourselves to accept things as they are.

Aaron: Right.

Dan: And balance them at peace through whatever we experience no matter how terrible or sad or tragic.

Aaron: Right.

Dan: But you consider yourself a glass half full kind of guy?

Aaron: Oh definitely, definitely. I’m always looking for the positive. Absolutely.

Negativity for me is not worth it. It’s just not a place where I want to go.

Dan: A can-do Campbell.

Aaron: Yeah, Campbells can. That’s our motto. That’s our family motto, Campbells can.

Dan: I like that. Douglasses do.

Aaron: Douglasses do! There you go. See, it’s that simple. It’s just a mindset. So it’s no big deal.

Dan: I saw some … I’ve got some vague memory. I don’t know if it was a video or something I read of some kid asked if the glass was half full or half empty. He was a little kid.

Aaron: So he picked it up and he smashed it over the guy’s head? That’d be like theDan: That’d be awesome.

Aaron: That would be the Zen thing to do.

Dan: And this little psychopath. No, he took it very literally and he said, well it’s neither. It’s 100% full of half water and half oxygen.

Aaron: Oh.

Dan: Which sounds like a very Zen thing to say.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: So have you ever bought any lottery tickets?

Aaron: I have. I’ve bought lottery tickets before. It’s not something that I’m really into and I rarely do it. I usually do it when I’m back in the States visiting my parents. Occasionally, just for the fun of it. I’ve never won anything.

Dan: You’ve never won anything.

Aaron: Well no, with the lottery. Like buying lottery tickets. I think it’s kind of … it’s not something I would do regularly, no.

Dan: Yeah, a lot of people say it’s a tax on people that are bad at math.

Aaron: Yeah, I think you’re better off, in terms of if you want to earn money, to create value for society. You create value in society, you will be rewarded for that.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Yeah, just strict gambling is not such a good idea. But no risk, no reward.

You never know. I suppose if you bought a lottery ticket you could suddenly win it, but as the story shows that that may not be such a great thing.

Dan: Well he had a good run. House on the beach, a lambo, Rolls-Royce.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: I bet he had some fun.

Aaron: It’s all temporary.

Dan: I’m sure he regrets it now.

Aaron: Oh yeah.

Dan: Yeah, it’s funny. It’s almost like he could see what could happen there when he said, going to change my life, I’m not going to blow it.

Aaron: Not going to blow his money, yeah.

Dan: Yeah, ends up doing exactly that.

Aaron: That’s what he’s doing, yeah. The irony.

Dan: I thought it was interesting that he took his money in installments. They always give you a

choice whether you take it in installments over 20 years, or you can take it in a lump sum.

Aaron: Right.

Dan: Which would you do?

Aaron: I really don’t know. I think it depends on the math, it depends on the numbers. I don’t …

Dan: Well you get taxed probably heavier. No, probably not.

Aaron: If you take … I wonder.

Dan: Top tax bracket no matter what.

Aaron: Yeah, I’d have to look at the taxes. I’d have to look at … for me, I’m pretty much in control of myself. So, for me, having a large sum of money, if I did have it, I certainly wouldn’t blow it. I’m not interested in … heavily interested in material things. It’s nice to be comfortable, but I’m not the kind of person that would just blow it on fancy things. So I could handle a lump sum.

Dan: Yeah, I don’t think I would ever buy a Lamborghini.

Aaron: No, God no. What’s the point of that?

Dan: I think I would just feel soAaron: If you want to drive a Lamborghini, just rent it for a day and have fun, and then you’re done.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: It’s crazy. To buy one.

Dan: House on the beach.

Aaron: It’d be nice, but you could just rent one.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Just rent one. No, just being comfortable, being with family and friends is pretty much … I’m already wealthy in that sense.

Dan: Yeah, that was his focus in the beginning.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: Then before long he was just going wild.

Aaron: That’s a sticky situation. It’s one thing to hang out with family and friends and support them and be kind and loving and generous but, when you put large amounts of money in the picture, things change.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Because then people start … certain people may start manipulating you to get that money. Then it starts making you paranoid, like is this person … they really like me? They really want to be with me or are they just trying to get my money? It just introduces this very complicated, emotionally sticky kind of situation that is not so desirable. You know? It seems like a blessing, but it could be a curse.

Dan: Yeah, a lot of people … a lot of advisors recommend that people keep it secret at least for a while.

Aaron: Yeah, absolutely. If I suddenly came into a large amount of money I wouldn’t want anybody to know. That would just not be good. But I don’t have that problem and probably never will.

Dan: So yeah, it’s amazing the highs and the lows this guy went from.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: From having it all to living in a garage. He’s living in a garage.

Aaron: Yeah, talk about a rollercoaster ride.

Dan: Yeah, addicted to heroin, robbing banks.

Aaron: Wow.

Dan: Yeah, I’m surprised they haven’t made a movie about this guy.

Aaron: Wow.

Dan: Well it’s actually kind of recent. I think he just got busted within the last couple years.

Aaron: Oh really? So he’s now … he’s in the slammer now.

Dan: Yeah, he’s in prison and he’s got 33 months.

Aaron: Oh, that’s not so bad.

Dan: Yeah. He’s grateful for it.

Aaron: Well, I mean, prison could be a blessing for certain people who are struggling out in the world because it limits you. It limits your choices and you can focus on getting better, reorienting your perspectives.

Dan: He says what he wants most … when he gets out he’s planning on writing a book called Lottery to Robbery.

Aaron: Why doesn’t he just write it while he’s in there?

Dan: Maybe he wants to publish it. Maybe he is writing it.

Aaron: Oh, okay.

Dan: He wants to make good with his friends and family that maybe he grew apart from.

Aaron: Right.

Dan: He says he just wants things to be boring. He said something about wanting everything just to be in the middle. No highs, no lows, just normal.

Aaron: Yeah, fair enough man. The Middle Path.

Dan: Yeah. He wants to be the farmer.

Aaron: The farmer. Why don’t you become a farmer, Dan? I could call you Farmer Dan. That would bring me a great deal of happiness. That would be a big blessing actually.

Dan: I’m tending to my flock. I’m going to be a shepherd.

Aaron: Shepherd Dan. Will you be my shepherd, Dan?

Dan: Sure. Sure.

Aaron: Okay, I’ll follow you.

Dan: I’ll lead the way.

Aaron: I’ll follow you blindly. Into the abyss. Alrighty.

Dan: Okie dokie, until next time.

Aaron: Well yeah man. Keep all those curses, turn them into blessings.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Then watch out for the blessings because they may be curses.

Dan: That’s right. Sometimes curses in disguise. Is that a saying? Do people say that?

Aaron: Well we’re saying it now, so it must be a thing.

Dan: Alright, in the books.

Aaron: Alright man.

Dan: Alright, see ya.

Aaron: We’ll talk to you next time. See ya.