You've made this day a special day and you know how? By just you're being you.  Be intentional with your relationships. Don't fall into the you know we should get together sometime. All right yeah I'll call you. Yeah we'll do that. Make it a priority. Right. Make the relationship a priority. Be intentional. Have intention and actually do it. Correct. Not like oh yeah we'll we'll get together. Just like no we are getting together at 10 a.m. And we see anxiety and loneliness and depression and suicide rates climbing. Rubbed by Instacart Door Dash. Self checkout.  Right. To get your groceries. I can transact by myself every single thing is by yourself. Right. And he gave me two words. He said I will answer your question. He said I'm broken. We're always put out the door instead of being present. Right. Because then people start to accept themselves for who they are. Tom. Hello. Hi. How are you? Good to see you. I'm good. So who are you? Good. All right my name is Tom and if this is not a trick question my answer should be that I'm a beloved child of God and everything else flows from that but if you really want to know like what I do I am a musician and a father or a husband. I work in a couple different places in Syracuse New York and I think the biggest thing that I do lately is connect with people try to help them be all of who they are and be okay with that. That seems to be my new calling. Yeah I love Disney and Fred Rogers I'm sure he'll come up at some point. Disney, Mr. Rogers. Yeah what was that thing you said about making people exactly who they are? Is that what you said?  Being somebody to listen to people. I think a lot of people, well I think a lot of people listen but I think often we listen to respond rather than listen to understand. What does that mean? So often when we have a conversation if you're talking I'm immediately thinking I've got to respond. I've got to ask this question. I've got to say oh wait did you think about this instead of just listening and letting you finish and asking myself what are you really asking me? Are you asking me to respond or did you just want to tell me? Did you just want to tell me or are you asking me to respond? What do you think people want more just if you listen to or for you to actually tell them something? I think they just want to be listened to. I hear that over and over again with people and sometimes at the end of our time together they'll say wow I didn't know I needed this and that tells me that there are a lot of people out there not listening. Wow I didn't know I needed this. What is this exactly? What do you do with people? It's what to me looks like what used to be a conversation between friends. Back in the day when people actually listened to each other. I find this in the younger age group the college age students high school students that and I've heard faculty members say this too that that the young people today don't know how to do this what you and I are doing right now they don't know how to do it yeah sitting in a room and just talking yes and not um yeah um but no so what me and Tom are doing right now just sitting there talking not on our devices not playing a video game not engaged in even any activity just literally just sitting there and talking which is what me and Tom do yeah we occasionally we eat and we occasionally we drink but those are uh what was that Matt Damon movie he was with Robin Williams good will hunting when he asked that girl out and she's like oh we can get a drink and he's like well we can just eat a bunch of caramels because they be just as arbitrary so that's how I feel about like actually getting together with a friend and just talking like the coffee the food it's just kind of a prop it's just something to do but honestly you could just kind of sit in your own house with a friend and have the same experience I guess we've been friends for a while yep so maybe you can speak better to what do I do what does Tom do yeah okay it all begins two years ago three years ago at this point uh so Tom for as long as I've known him has been involved in campus ministry so he he does a lot of the administrative side and whatnot but somehow he just created this position for himself where people from all over campus started with students and then it went into faculty and it just kind of it turned into everybody comes and they talk to him and they literally just talk to him he literally just listens for hours sometimes many hours sometimes and then they go away or they come away from the interaction thinking like wow I didn't know I needed that and then they come back and then what the result of that is is that people start to accept themselves for who they are which is Tom's gift to the world which is like we just said is like it's a conversation or it's things that people used to do like parents would do it your friends would do it your clergy uh people in the community somebody would be there to listen to and we don't have that anymore and Tom does that somehow he I wouldn't say he gets paid for it it was just kind of a part of like what he did on campus but he just does it like in his personal life too now it's made me curious I tell the story and so in 2019 I was looking out my window and I noticed students going to class alone and when my wife and I were in school we were like the Charlie Brown game and we were going to have a clump right we would go to class and we would meet for dinner yeah we were the first class to be given an email address and the internet was barely a thing it was the worst dial-up possible so the one that made noise yeah so nobody used it um and we didn't have cable tv so we had to get to know each other and so as I looked out my window one day I noticed students going to class alone and I remember thinking this is not my problem and I don't know why I saw it that day but I did and then I couldn't not see it so for three weeks I just couldn't not see it and I remember thinking if some of the manholes were open on the side we would lose half the student body because they're just all in their phone yes or they're just walking through life and not engaged right um and so I started to ask students like this is what I see can you tell me about this and one student said to me he was the student government president at the time when he said you're not wrong I understand what you're saying but I don't know what you do about it so you're not wrong about what about what I see and what you see his students walking by themselves it just disengaged yeah what I perceived as a loneliness that's what I thought and so I had one student come in and this was I remember the day in fact the anniversary is coming up was October 4th 2019 and the reason I remember the day is because of what happened at that meeting and I just said okay his name was Jake I didn't really know him but I said you're a cybersecurity sophomore oh that's right ROTC yeah right I said but who are you who's like where is it like who are you and he he reached out and he shook my hand which I have a lot of questions all day long nobody's ever stopped and shaking my hand just in the middle of the interaction yeah he just stopped and shook yeah so it wasn't like oh hi I'm Jake correct it was like you guys were already talking and then you asked well who are you yeah that like just triggered something in him and he was like wow that that was pivotal it impacted him yeah and he said a lot he said nobody has asked me that question in the year and a half that I've been here and he said and I was beginning to think it didn't matter who he is as a person yeah who Jake is as a person just and I didn't mean anything I had a question I had no idea what I was asking at that time I just I just closed the door I was like okay I know you do this and this but who are you who are you right yeah how do you answer that and he gave me two words he said I will answer your question he said I'm broken whoa just without even knowing he just went right out and said that yep and I remember thinking what what do I see that he can't because you see him as this like squared away put together ROTC straight a student very difficult major yep like you know clean cod just like very put together he's like I'm doing doing the Air Force thing getting up at 5 a.m. to go to SU to every day every day right he was in that day that we met he was in his his camouflage fatigue or you know and it just and to me it was an invitation for a conversation and I'll tell you I don't remember anything we talked about in that meeting but I remember leaving that thinking I have a lot more questions yeah so we met the next week and the next week in the next week so we met every every week for two years there's that book Tuesdays with more I love Tuesdays I would say I had Thursdays with Jake every every Thursday at like four o'clock two o'clock we would meet with no agenda with no outcome just a chance to just to process whatever the you know can we can we just repeat the fact that you just said no agenda no agenda no agenda okay so it seems like just kind of a little like throwaway line like oh yeah no agenda but I just want to I want to emphasize how important that concept is when you get together with someone it's like oh it's for dinner okay and now the food's gone and now our meeting is over or it's like oh it's to play this game or it's oh it's to do this thing and then that thing becomes the thing that you're meeting about and then once it's over like it doesn't matter your connection is it doesn't matter what Tom just said is he just met with this kid every week for years with no agenda except to just be in the same room and just to talk and connect and what they both got out of that whole interaction was I can't even put it to work it's how important it was to both of them you know it wasn't about anything that they wrote together or did together or built or whatever it was it was just like a connection of this form correct and they both understood each other and themselves a thousand times better the front gravity goes into actions with no agenda it starts with no agenda it accomplishes more than you could possibly imagine but it starts with no agenda but one of the things that I've learned from from doing this is that I tell this to students all the time they said our our interactions with one another today in this society have become transactions yes not relational transactional not relational and transactions are not investments yes they're transactions yeah there's no and we see it over and over again or we we remove the human so we don't even have to transact except with ourselves rub by instacart door dash self checkout self check out don't even have to like look somebody in the eye and hand your credit card over right to get your groceries self-check out I can transact by myself so everything is by yourself right yeah and we see anxiety and loneliness and depression and suicide rates climb in here right it used to be that if I didn't want to cook we would go out to dinner sure now that's too much work for us I mean it cracks me up but we call these restaurants and they can just throw the food at our front door yeah for you to just eat by yourself while you're would you call it interacting would you call watching tv and movies interacting or would you call it watching other people interact yeah well yeah because you're interacting with the screen it's a one-way interaction and I don't think that the smartphone or the technology we have is bad I think it's what it has prevented us from doing you know when I was a seven-year-old kid I had a dirt bike it was a yellow and toffee dirt bike and uh and so I saw a movie band in the neighborhood and I would go to the house and ring the doorbell and say hi I'm Tom you want to come out and play you have kids we don't do that no no and well if a kid does that it's like where's your mom right if an adult does that it's like why aren't you in jail so right so as I jump to post what I was seeing on campus thinking how comes and students were coming to me a lot around the same time saying we want to start a student club I said for what and they said to learn how to talk to one another who said that was that Jake no victoria victoria oh Tory yeah yeah I know Tory yeah so we had a meeting with like 20 students and her and she said we want to learn how to communicate and talk to one another but we don't have the language is that her idea so what what flowed from those conversations were the creation of fins unplugged which was a group to just come together and have intentional conversations fins on clogged so you put the phones away and you're just in a group of people yes and fins means dolphin so this is all at lamoin college up in upstate new york and syracuse new york so it's like dolphins is the logo the mascot whatever so they're fins right so everything is fins just in case people didn't know yeah fins unplugged so that was happening along the same time and so I as I'm having these meetings then from my meetings with jake eventually flowed the creation of quantity of companions a men's group and then full sisters was a women's group that started a chance for for people to come together right and look at three questions where was the good in your week where was the bad in your week and where was God in your week yeah because this was a campus yeah it was a through the campus ministry it was a christian-based organization um yeah can you repeat that what was the good where was the good in your week where was the bad in your week and where was God in your week and what was fascinating right the success of that group is not what happens in that holly but what started to happen outside of it as they started to invest in one another and didn't wait till the next week for follow-up but would see each other on campus or it was somebody's birthday and they would send them a text message and say hey it's you know it's Patrick's birthday let's get him a cookie cake because this was during covid right we'll meet outside right that they invested in one another and it wasn't you know at the beginning it was where was the good everything was that day oh the worst thing happened today but over time they started to really pay attention to their week and sometimes the good in their week may have been something that happened right after the last meeting and they would be they would hold that all for the whole week that's how they could share it yeah and it was never self-help it wasn't oh you think that's bad i got one no it was a place to just listen and support us yeah and it was it was amazing um and so then you know as time went on uh two years happened and it went by and it was the end of uh jake's junior year and we were having breakfast because we had to meet outside during covid right before we went home for the summer i said i'll pick up food his phone was off which is not unusual for him so he's got a flip phone he's like only 19 year old with a flip phone i didn't know what he wanted jake's old soul man he's an old soul so i uh i remember though from one of our conversations he had talked about liking going to diners with his dad and his brother and his uncle and that's where it began and i thought i remember him saying something about liking eggs over easy so i got eggs over reason i brought him up and and when he opened it when we sat outside that day he said wow you really know you know that i like eggs over easy and i said that one time one time and to me that was so funny to go from who are you to while you really know me and i remember thinking in that moment it's because you let me and you didn't have to and so and four weeks later um i found myself in the in the hospital being diagnosed with what i thought was going to be a slip disc it was stage four kidney cancer yeah a lot of twists because i think you said you found it after a chiropractor right yes it was a chiropractic adjustment that went kind of bad or he thought it did and uh like he had a terrible little back pain and he was like oh what did this chiropractor do to me so he gets in the hospital to image him and that's what we find and i had a compression fracture in my spine now i the chiropractor is not full no no i don't that that disc was so eaten by tumor i think when he adjusted me that was what he cracked it lots of found thank god yeah i went when i did because they were going to send me home in the ER with just some muscle relaxers and i said no i can't i could not get out of bed yeah i'm like i want whatever you need to find out to right well in medicine we call it poop pain out of proportion okay which are paying attention it matters because like a slip disc you know you have people complaining all the time like yeah it's going down my leg um i just kind of woke up with it or i lifted this and movement happened and like it's terrible pain but it's not like people can move they can bear weight it's just like it's really hurt it's like they can barely move but they can move this was like no i can't move i literally could knock it out of this is poof yeah this is pain out of proportion which should then trigger the provider to be like okay something might be going on this guy's probably just traumatic about his back pain x y and z like everybody else fine but maybe do a simple x right and then it's like well what the heck is that yeah so i as i'm laying there grappling with all this not knowing what i was telling people we didn't have a plan you know it was all spinning in my head but i thought who who needs to hear this from me and not through the rumor mail or on facebook or whatever yeah so family members friends students i tell students right there's a quote from Fred Rogers that i love that anything human is mentioned and anything mentionable can be manageable if you talk about it with people that you trust so here i've done the last two years telling all kinds of students and people in my life like whatever you want to talk about we can talk about to withhold that from i thought would be in disservice to them so i i called jacon told him and a couple weeks later he messaged me and said could we do a a face time i said sure and i was upstairs and he wasn't there which is weird because he's never late but like well i'm not going i couldn't walk wait a minute and then my wife came upstairs she said somebody's at the door for me oh i don't i don't know who it is i said okay so i come downstairs and it was jake and at first my head is spinning with the details like why are you here how did you get here i started to say i can't believe you did this and then i said no actually i can um but i i asked him i said please tell me you're not driving back to driving back to where to new jersey he's going to drive off the two miles from campus he drove off the four hours from the jersey correct wow and in that moment i had to grapple with the fact that i clearly meant something to him and i knew who he had become to me when i realized yeah this this person drove three and a half hours from new jersey yeah to see me for 15 minutes now if you had told me that in 2019 on october 4th because i asked the kid who are you right all of this with well and again with no agenda correct he didn't come up to do anything or to go to a show with him or to like do anything specific he came up to see you correct that's it that's it that's it um because that's important and i i think we we live our life looking through the winch i showed this with some placeable students yesterday but we only make sense of it when we look in the river you know we are so fast-paced and this is we're just constantly going i've never seen a society more interested in where they have to be next right it's like me like well okay here now like this one really forticean but you know it's next thing we're always put out the door instead of being present right but it's only when we stop that train and look in the rear view mirror that we start to see the patterns over and over and over and so through my meetings with students i thought oh i have this ability to work with people that are 18 to 22 and draw the best act themselves and then i started to notice the patterns where this would happen with my friends or over who are all right or with with other people and they would say like the students i didn't know i needed this yeah so when i went back to to my my daughter's looking at all this like what has happened from the seven-year-old on a dirt bike to where we are today and i realized that when my daughters want to play with some my wife will set up a play date i never went out in the neighborhood you just want you know streetlight comes on come home if they ask you to stay for dinner you can but you have to call us and ask us you know there there are rules yeah there was no my parents didn't come with me right but what we've had to do to keep our children safe these days that has kind of taken away some of those skills that i learned to develop because i didn't have a smartphone i had a massive blow out on my dirt bike one year flipped over the handlebars rolled down the hill had to get some stitches in my chin oh geez there were neighbors yeah playmates that saw what was happening ran to get help yeah you know um i get nervous now when my daughter goes out for a bike ride in the neighborhood for 15 minutes yeah because you just don't know um you probably have a cell phone and an air tan on her i do whereas we didn't have that in the past right yeah so that really helped me see what the current college students were facing when i thought about my daughters because i thought how will they have the language in three years or five years or eight years to walk up to something and say hi i'm so and so do you want to be my friend i've noticed that so much so especially like lately the weather's been really nice and i walk my neighbor's dog holly because she's the sweetest dog ever yeah and so and you know she loves me so i just like walk around uh the block with her and i've started walking around campus with her because syracuse university campus is just beautiful if you ever take a walk very historic it's from like 1820 or something lots of old buildings lots of beautiful architecture lots of cool like historical blacks and stuff so it's just a nice place to walk it's like a park yeah and so i've been walking this dog around campus and sure enough there's a bunch of kids and backpacks you know going to class going to and from class they all look at the dog because it's a cute dog you know and then they just like keep going and like you literally have to be like do you want to pet this dog and then they like very me like like yeah yeah i do it's like but whereas me i go to a park and i see a dog i'm already petting it before the owner even knows i'm there it's just like which is probably isn't the best thing to do sometimes if it's like a therapy dog nobody the point is these kids like don't have any social skills it seems like like they're uncomfortable with strangers maybe not a bad thing they're uncomfortable with people like just trying to talk to them they don't really know what to do right and it's from that it's just like from being super sheltered from not going out and having to like interact with the world as children you know because there is so sheltered ladies are set up there's nothing there's no there's no social skills right it seems like and we're suspect yeah that's another thing like sitting you know when when i talk with with students or with people they're they're waiting i'm they're waiting for the like well you brought me here because you must want me to do something right you want me to read you want me to give a talk to me right like i just want to get to know you as you know me all right who are you who are because who are you because it makes a difference yes should you ever need someday a letter of recommendation a reference right you will hear in my voice if oh you want a higher force i can tell you all about it right rather than i don't really know i mean he took a class when he did this he did that how many different ways can i say they're you know organized efficient discipline like but if i really know them i can share stories you could tell them that i'm one of those things and and i think the the three things that that i've noticed that this helped me there's a quote from somebody and and it says pay attention be astonished tell about it pay attention be astonished tell about it so pay attention to your day to your life right be astonished and whatever happens yeah and tell somebody that that's the first thing right to tell some and then to be intentional with your relationships and to just to be intentional to them to don't fall into the you know we should get together sometime all right yeah i'll call you oh yeah we'll do that make a priority right make the relationship a priority be intentional right like just like you're working on your degree or your project or your work or your fitness routine or your hobbies whatever it is that you're doing that you're planning and like you put effort into your relationships to serve that for even more right be intentional as it like have intention and actually do it correct now like oh yeah we'll we'll get together just like no we're getting together at 10 a.m and then tom text me and then now it's 11 and then now it's 11 15 but i will be there right yep Matthew Kelly that happened today an author that i really like he says the the most important things in life are seldom hurt the most important things in life are seldom also we i have a whole list of things to do that all seem really pressing right go to the store make an appointment to get my car inspected like this is really important stuff none of that matters i had a friend of mine last night i had just gotten home and they blew out two tires on their car and they called me they were out on Erie Boulevard i mean i literally just got home from Erie and they said the tow truck will be here in an hour and i said do you want me to come out and they said i would never ask you to do i said why so i went yeah right that was actually an important thing not the stuff that i wanted to get done when i got home that when i was driving home field felt like this is really important because you say i gotta pay this bill yeah it's not you know so to be intentional when you're when you're with somebody because life gets crazy right set up the next meeting the next the next time you're gonna get together and it's not making an appointment like i don't need to make an appointment with me but but it shows that it's important enough that i want to walk the time right and actually commit to it and actually do it it's not like oh well if everything else falls through then we'll get together or i don't know something else comes up or i get to pick up a shift and like no like i have plans right with tom yep that's important that's what he means by the intention and then and the last one is just show up which i think it how many of us have have relationships where we have a bad day at work with i'm supposed to hang outside but i'm i'm no good tonight yeah i'm not in the right mental space or my anxiety's bad or i'm feeling depressed so i'm just not i'm not going to be my best self that i'm like portraying on instagram so therefore i'm not getting together with you right no what you really need is to get together with someone you love and trust yep and that will make you your best self because i know that yes because i know that going or somebody else coming like you're not going to leave in the same space because whoever like they're going to move yeah forward and i think that that is important we need to we need to remember that yeah when we want to cancel plans with people because we're not our best self that's probably the time when we should not cancel that's when you need those plans the most right that's what you need to interact and be listened to and to listen the most yep yeah because when you're not your best self right yeah it just it fills your car i remember this i'm gonna say and to not have an agenda yeah right that's the other like it's not well i gotta get divorced because this thing happened in my life or i gotta give an update about this it's sometimes it's that way like oh man i really like i've texted tom so many times and like something's going wrong or something i just need to like talk through like i need a tom tom tom talks you know because that's that i don't know that's what i've been calling them that's what they're in my phone has like tom i need a tom talk he's like oh what's wrong and then i tell him and he's like yeah we'll get together um and like sometimes we'll talk about that for a minute sometimes we'll talk about it for five minutes but like we always end up talking about way other things way more it's just like yeah we'll get through that sure no big deal at all right but that's it's not a psychiatry section you're not just like it's doing it's just like no i just need to tell you or maybe i really need your advice but then boom that's it and then we talk about other stuff yeah yeah i think it's it's intentional relationship deep friendship which is so interesting because through these conversations with people i come to in some ways i'm looking at this heart here on the table know their heart heart there's a heart here yeah because they let me oh like the hard work heart but what we often base how well we know people i like i could say you know of course i were really good friends yeah and my wife could say well you have your couple what does he like to eat i'm like i don't know everything what's his favorite color or what's just like candy or whatever i'm like but she but she's like we don't know and i'm like no but you said you're really good friends i'm like yeah we are but here's a couple things it's the core of the onion it's not the superficial stuff but most friendships start there and then hopefully somebody will trust enough to deepen it a little bit and deepen it a little bit but i find that with many relationships i actually have to like kind of zoom out and learn some of the trivial stuff you know because you didn't like it's interesting you know i love donuts well that i hate donuts i know that didn't bring us together like i love donuts right no because i hate them but over time i hate them as a concept i enjoy eating them i hate the fact that they exist right we'll get into it yeah so it's just interesting how society marks what a good friendship is right versus how i have come to understand that's such an interesting concept because like tom just said like most people start with the trivial stuff and almost everyone just stays there like almost everyone knows like oh well my friend bob's favorite color is green and he drives a camry and one day he wants a green camry and now we are best friends but he has no idea that bob was crying last night because x y and z whereas tom when he meets you he doesn't ask what your favorite color is it's who are you and then you tell him for 45 minutes and he still doesn't know what your favorite color is right the point is relationships are so superficial because that's comfortable it's not vulnerable it's it's just easy but it's no depth in that you don't get anything out of telling you your favorite color correct like okay if tom and i sat in the room for 40 minutes and we talked about nothing but like that wall is gray that wall is blue my favorite color is green i like cars do you like cars i like donuts well i hate donuts like and just like talked about facts and just talked about subjective crap and just talked about like what do you do for a living how was your 401k which is literally everybody instead we talk about i don't even know what the heck to talk about we just talk about who we are right what things mean to us and what people in our lives are doing and what that means about us and being able to have the hard conversations around things that for some reason people don't have the courage to say you know i mean you have conversations and i'm like what do you mean the hard conversations like things about things that are difficult to talk about yes or character attributes like if you said to me tom do you know sometimes you can be incredibly stubborn okay like oh let's talk about that tell me like what or or you have the courage to say no i think you're being i think you're being too critical here i told you that yeah like let's look at that whereas a lot of people would be like no it's for you right like i couldn't tell you tell me that right yeah and i think the other thing too is that people were uncomfortable and it took me a long time to learn for myself but we're uncomfortable sharing our heart right if i could i could text vorice or call him and play this off like uh hey man like haven't seen you in a while let's catch up or i could say uh you know for us it's been way too long i haven't seen you in a while and i miss who yeah especially guys especially men who says i miss you right to a friend so which one which one reveals my heart because it'd be very easy for you to just like i don't have time this week i'm okay yeah which one am i going to answer but i might be yeah it might be kind of hurt by that but it's because i didn't ask for what i needed or want right the second message did tell you and i i think people should also leave open i see this with the college students sometimes like well why don't you ask them if they want to go to dinner like you want to go to dinner tonight so we're back no like okay and they're like well they hate me right like no right i would love to get together could we grab dinner sometime this week right tell me what works for you yeah right that's it right so they make they may have literally answered no i can't have dinner tonight well they don't mean ever right they don't mean there's something wrong with you i don't want to eat with you ever you're a terrible person i'll dare you text me they're just like no i have dinner plans right or no i'm not hungry or no i don't know what i'm saying yeah yeah yeah for sure i remember this kind of funny story i remember one time uh it was a monday and i and jake was having a tough time i remember this and monday was my day off so and i like i have time today for right which is unusual i have time in my schedule like that maybe i could make a difference and so i i texted him and i said because i know getting away from the situation can be helpful for people very true i'm like why don't we meet again as they hurt yeah just oh i'll just talk right and he wrote back and he said i have work i don't need ice cream okay and i remember thinking what kind of an answer is that what do you want just like because i was taking it literally like he literally had work and he didn't need ice cream so when we met that thursday before as we before we started really like i said i gotta ask you that's because now i've known you for two and a half years i'm like you know it wasn't about the ice cream right oh i see why you're taking it back and he said what are you talking about i said monday yeah he's like oh no he's like what did i did you try to help him i gave you some like snarky yes or yeah because he was just in a bad space but he was pretty he had to get this work done wrong and and miss the fact that tom was just trying to out right but i only i don't need ice cream right but we but if we don't have the courage to to talk about we just dance around it and you're you're at the next interaction just resenting how could you treat me like that like i was trying to help you but we'd never voice and you never talk about it right and that like that eats away at you it's like oh remember that time two years ago like you probably don't remember but like it's ingrained in there if you'd ever actually talk about it right you know that's one little barb after the next that's interesting i shared this other little tidbit with students yesterday i said sometimes people will say to me wow like you talk about this person a lot what did they do and that that goes back to the transactional thing and i will often say to people they didn't do anything they were they existed or they are they are they were they didn't do right because people wanted to be oh well of course like you know boris gave you was kidding of course your friends but no right like like there has to be some kind or they helped you close on your house so of course that's how they know yeah like he has this skill set or like he did this for me or he gave me money like now we're friends right like no like we just we existed and we connected and we so i'm just gonna wait for the door to close there yeah like we existed we connected we listened that's what we did we had a conversation yes we had many conversations nothing was actually i mean i'm sure we've done stuff for each other a lot of dinner back and forth hundreds of times at this point who knows who hey who paid last who who paid last i don't know who cares does it matter i can't stand i know that people have budget concerns and that's a reality but i cannot stand this enmo culture that if that enmo culture that if you and i are friends enough to to go on a road trip together right right and you're getting gas and i'm gonna run in and say i'm gonna grab a bag of chips do you want anything and you're like yeah grab me a diet coke and i get it and you're like you can buy me the two bucks right what are we doing come on just just let it go i used to work in an asian store and there were no uh peter's polar parlor pete's polar parlor camellia yep yeah yeah and there were these two women that would come every day uh and they would get two small cones two small circle are these like old ladies yes did they pull open like a classic catalog today with their hair all done up and like and back then the small cone was 95 cents i was like 99 and they would always say they're like we want two small twists and we're paying separately and we want the nickel back whoa and i remember thinking i should be married to them i called my friend scott and i said scott i said when that he's my college roommate i said on the day comes that i can't buy you a 95 cent ice cream we need to re-examine this whole friendship you know like don't let me get like that we're paying so two old ladies pull up to it sounds like a joke because it is but it's real two old ladies pull up to an ice cream parlor and they say we want two twists 95 cents each we're paying separately and we want the nickel back nickel back was a terrible man oh it's probably based on this story do you think that's what it's based on nickel back like somebody getting a nickel back from the dollar it uh terrible man for a terrible situation just and we want the nickel back yep oof yep so that that whole yeah just that transaction well can i can we revisit that because they were coming every single week or every single day yeah couple times a week yeah but still a couple times a week every single week they're consistently seeing each other doing right right what were they talking about well they were like eating their 95 cents i don't know why they're talking i don't know i didn't pay that close attention so that's not the next customer because i don't know i mean like it's something consistent in both of their lives right like they i'm sure they connect sure in some way maybe not very very closely or maybe super closely or as closely as they're comfortable with but like they're they can count on each other correct let's say it's deb and barb deb can count on seeing barb twice a week every single week for the rest of her life for her 95 cent come yep and that's valuable the fact that they can't buy each other a phone i don't know maybe that was like from a depression era sure everything was like any pinchy um no abundance financially but the fact of the matter is they're still getting together correct but we want the nickel down well they want that dad you're i'm not buying you a comb and barb even screw yourself i'm not buying you a comb but i i tell that story because i think it's interesting that and i see this when people go out and they fight over the check i do this with my dad all the time yeah come on we're still gonna do that come on i got you but friends will take the things that are hardest to give and without thinking about our time right our the time that i'm gonna spend worrying about you because you shared with me a problem and i'm right about how to how to help that or how to hold it right so the emotional anguish our time our energy our love but when it comes to our money which is sometimes the easiest thing to do that's where people put up the fight right no no no you're okay for that i'll get it i'm like some people put up the fight and some people just take and take and take and take and take and take and take right right depends on the person yep but yeah yep so i yeah i think you know i who are the people that you probably talked about this who are the people that you do life to life and i love that question you know where you just it's like i i'll ask people who are the who are the people in your life you can do nothing yeah because that's everything where you don't have the awkward like what do you want what do you want right what do you want your pizza well eat anything no peppermint why don't we want it to run just yeah right the people you can do nothing with is everything because it's not about anything you do i mean you and i have done that right like i don't you and i don't the world might see like they don't have a lot in common and yet they're friends actually yeah so boris one day said well do you want to go shooting oh yeah that was interesting i've never done that shooting thoughts right yeah and it wasn't i'm gonna take you shooting and you're gonna love it so much like you're gonna do this thing and you're gonna buy a gun right no but yeah it gave me a glimpse into an aspect of you you know something i enjoy right yeah and i think we hear the word well you're very different i think sometimes people hear that as negative right i'm like no it just means different right right it doesn't mean anything other than that but it's also good there it is a good you know because then you can learn from someone who's different what are you gonna learn from someone who's the same way as you know it's very very comfortable you're gonna do the same things and you're gonna get whatever and you don't have to grow in any which way but i'm sure okay somebody you've never shot a gun before no before that experience no did you find that you were any different after that experience well or that you thought about it a different way or i mean it was a new experience and it was not an easy one either no it wasn't yeah um so like what did you think it it gave me a lot of respect for people that that have to use firearms and in the moment yeah um you know here i am with this thing in my hand like it's like i want to do and i it's scary what i didn't expect was the pushback from the release you know it's a nine millimeters it's like handgun okay gotta get used to this it's block 48 so it does have a bit of a recoil yeah yeah um but it's interesting sometimes when you're with the right people it takes the focus off me because it's interesting to me how like like i trusted you right and how we will put stock and other people and our trust in them like i've done things with friends that i would never do on my own like like ride scary amusement park and i'm thinking it's totally stupid because the ride is not any safer because i'm riding it with you well tom i wish you want to go on a roller coaster by yourself this is not a solitary activity you or my wife or whoever it's still the same ride right but it's different from the other weird like yeah all right i'll do if you're gonna do it i'll do it if you're gonna do it i'll do it it's weird like yeah i it's like the whole might be our culture right you're not gonna save it if this thing loses true true if it comes off the rails like you being here doesn't get it change anything right but we're doing it together correct yes and and that makes a difference oh yeah we're social creatures yep as much as the world wants to as much as they're like self-check out instacart rubhub world wants to make us just like little islands we're social creatures yep i've been thinking about that a lot lately actually we're not going to get all into like attachment theory but you know i got that like little certification yep and there's like they basically categorize people into like these attachment styles everyone's obviously unique but it's just like some people crave connections so much that they feel like it's like a never-ending pit that they just need to connect more and more and then they become kind of controlling and kind of anxious and needy and then some people go away the opposite side of the spectrum and they push connection away and they feel like they don't need anyone but then those are the people that like they're just never satisfied they don't have that thing and they think something's wrong with them because they can't connect because they won't allow themselves to and then there's people who do connect correct and for some reason life for that is just more rich and fulfilling and just they don't feel like they're missing something because they can connect i think in our culture and especially for men we see it as a badge of honor to say i've got this and i have to get anybody else right the heavier the backpack the more noble it is right i don't need your help i've got this you know if i asked you to carry this couch by yourself halfway across my neighborhood and give it to a friend the couch is probably going to get broken in the process and you're going to come back you're going to be a wreck because we're too proud to say i need help right now if we did that then i need help i asked other people to help us it's going to get there faster it's going to be in one piece and you're all going to be like great now what and i have a memory too and i think when we carry that couch yeah yeah and i think sometimes we go to the other extreme where we we can fall into co-dependence yes is what you were talking about which i think is equally as toxic equally as i just can't function without this person in my life like i can't even move yeah but what about interdependence thank you right that that i am a better husband father musician person because you're in my life yes that's different yes that that yes i am independent i can i can do my own thing yeah but man life is a lot better because you're independent i can so i was thinking about that a lot lately too surviving versus thriving you can survive just fine on your own you can live by yourself in a cabin in the woods if you know how to i don't know how to garden how to hunt whatever you can survive are you going to be satisfied and happy absolutely not you can't thrive on your own you need other people to thrive your social creatures but you can survive so people out there are you surviving are you thriving and if you're just surviving think about what's missing it's probably something social it's probably other people are you working in an office by yourself not interacting with anybody that you go home and you watch tv or youtube and you watch these conversations maybe like this one and you feel like you're interacting and that's not taking away from podcasts or from like very important influencers and people that can teach you things and like you feel like you're there with them that's wonderful but are you interacting is somebody here in you listening responding or maybe not even responding but you feel like you're there is a connection do you have that if not you're not you're not thriving you're surviving not not only only surviving yeah not to be theological here but there's a theological time let's go um St. Irenaeus who I don't know much about but he has a quote it says St. Irenaeus the glory of God is the human person fully alive the glory of God is the human person fully alive yes it's thriving not surviving yes and yes to me the most important word in that sense is fully fully because there's a lot of people that's what I know is looking out my window there's a lot of people walking around breathing everyone's surviving who are yeah they're not thriving yeah yeah they're not fully alive they're pseudo alive yeah yeah and I think that that's the whole be intentional piece I often tell people because I think one of the ways that we can help people erode the mental health crisis that we have and there is one is to get out of our own to have the courage to tell the person in front of us who they are to us and for us oh so not just who they are to us and for us yes as in you are my friend right I care about you yeah because I don't you're my friend you're my friend but I don't get to this side right you do true right yes and so not just to go through right like people know that my favorite store is johnson and murphy I was just looking at your socks I was like those are from johnson and murphy that's your dang shirt right Tom waltz the crap out of some johnson and murphy I can't there's a sale he will buy seven vests and he'll give me two I can't tell you the number that too many vests are out that will when they pass a johnson murphy in an airport or in a mall every time I text you they'll snap a picture and say and that makes the person feel good yeah like you remembered something about me right but oftentimes we'll say like I don't want to be weird and yet when I ask people what would that feel like if somebody did that to them they'll be amazing yeah right so get out of your own way right and this concept that we are bothering people I noticed my my friend Scott 30 years ago friends one day I was going to call him yeah and I thought no I know he's busy I don't want to bother him or and I had I had somebody tell me once they said I don't want I don't want to be a burden to you and I remember I got so angry because if there's two things that just really make me angry that's not much it's when people demean themselves or others and I remember thinking you don't get to decide that I do you don't get to decide if you're a burden to me wait the word demean like demeaning like taking away your meaning yep like you don't mean anything yep when people demean themselves they think that they don't mean anything to themselves or to somebody else and Tom's like no you don't get to decide that for me because to me you do mean something correct you know even if it doesn't feel like it for you or to me you mean something and you mean a lot yep so you don't get to demean yourself when someone says like no I feel like a burden trying to take some of your time yep and Tom's like first off you're not taking a second don't demean yourself because to me you mean a lot correct yeah correct and that really pisses them off it makes me so mad when people do that when they don't value themselves or think that he doesn't value that correct yeah because he does correct yeah yep and yeah we have to we just have to help people with you know we're meaning to yes to because we I saw this this only we spend all of our life most of our life especially in college and grad school and profession like building our resident yeah the resume virtues but we spend little time building the eulogy virtues the eulogy virtues right nobody I do a lot of funerals because I work in the church as well eulogy that's what I never hear people get up oh man they were the best bio major or man that Boris he got he got into PA school like no they talk about my eulogy if people said that right I wasn't even a good bio major I was a terrible bio major they'll talk about your character or that that you were you were there for them or you were a listener or you love to cook and provide hospitality to people like that's that's what I mean like that it because the the relationships that we have are not usually based on what we do like I I don't need I don't need Jake to fire a nuclear missile for me he doesn't need me to play the piano most of the time right again like most of the time I don't need to come see you right for some medical reason once in a while but right rarely that's not the heart of it right that's like those are ancillary I guess you can call them benefits like if you have a network of people that you really care about and that really care about you like any like they probably have skills and they probably have abilities and they probably have connections and they probably have whatever that they'll be more than happy to share with you like more excited to share with you than you even want from them but that's like a side thing that's just like yeah sure of course you know you're one of my people but that's not the main thing the main thing is the connection right and I feel like people get that backwards yeah they're like oh you have a medical license maybe I should be friends with you in case I need an antibiotic one day like no I don't want to be friends with you if you're gonna be like that but if we're already friends and we already connect and we already like care about each other it's like four in the morning oh you're feeling sick I got you come on whatever fine but that's because the first thing was in place first you build your team you build your team you build your tribe and like just as a side benefit you know everybody can do something you know but it's all about the connection first yes and I've learned about the power of the comma one part of the comma yeah when we're when we're when I'm talking to myself right don't call a doctor right when we how do we say I can't do this I was walked I was looking at my back one day and I'm thinking this thing was rattling like I can't I can't do this build the depth yeah or resurface the deck but anyhow like I don't know the difference between a Phillips head and a straight head screwdriver oh I know that right like I can't do this and I'm thinking wait a minute I know somebody who can't Matt Matt the contract at the contract right at the contract Andy Matty he's in my bathroom like glorious I'll put a picture of so I said I can't do this comma alone I can't do this alone alone so I can't do this but I can't do it as soon as you put alone in there it takes the focus off you and turns you out to us and I think we love stories like that it's humanity right the Grinch the abominable snow monster the time of the movie that came out a man named Otto any time we see these characters that are turned inward uh-huh they shrink their world right it becomes like watching roundup sprayed on a dandelion it just does this right but as soon as they start to realize it's not about them life grows from that that's how the Grinch's heart grew two sizes right that's for celebrating celebrating differences right the elves and people they didn't have to be threatened by Rudolph's nose they can actually lose that Santa on his team uh-huh right a man named Otto who had a lot of grief mr. Fredrickson and up right yeah that's what his name was the old man and up yeah he was like a total like recluse and like his wife died he just like hid in his house decades and once he opened his door to the little a little kid I forgot his name but then like his world just exploded expanded then he got a dog and that's what really makes your world worthwhile getting dog dog and love that dog up so so to build your team yes for life your team for life yes yeah because it's not just for a time and you don't know where those friendships are going to lead right or or where they're going to take you you know you just don't you know and I remember thinking this summer Jake's family went down to the Jersey Shore and I got to go down he was home on leave I got to go down spend a couple days yeah and I remember sitting with it was his whole family and his extended family talking to his hands and looking at how the world looks at things and thinking like this me being here should not happen why and just when you look at it right like I we want the transaction I worked here you helped Jake with a problem at a time in his life and now he's moved up right why are you still alive right yeah and as Ann said that's a real testament to you right there are a lot of people that you can do a lot of things right but you have a family vacation is a really sacred time true so I invite somebody else on your family vacation correct right and so I got to to not just hear all those stories that I have heard or these characters in somebody's life but I got to be written into that story yeah in a very intentional way yes you know and I did have somebody in my life told me once because I asked them I said why did you finally open up and they said I knew that if I wanted your health I couldn't just let you read my story I hadn't I had to write you into this somebody said this to you yes what did say that one more time they somebody who was this person by the way this was a somebody that I know at the moment oh so uh just somebody else another person that didn't know you well said that one they said I knew that if I really wanted your health I couldn't let you just read my story I had to write you into it they had to invite me in to the mass yeah I don't ask for that did they say this before they got to know you or like as this was like a year in okay and we both noticed there was a lot more trust that has developed and I remember asking about that I said our meetings feel very different yeah a year later a year later yeah right and we're not just talking about this breakup that you went through oh that's what initially got him to start talking to you but then it went way past that way past that way past that yeah yeah yeah and that's a quote that I just never forgot because there I think it's interesting to be invited into people's lives in that way where I'm not just going to let you read my story I'm going to give you the red pen so you're going to write this I'll let you edit this I'll let you edit my story put notes in the margin story ask those hard questions have input right not just outsider but inside the story right yeah in a sitcom it's like when a character comes on you hear that sometimes like well they were supposed to only be on for one episode and they stayed but right yeah but they stayed in your life right you don't know how you'll never know how and some people might come back and out like people aren't transactions people are not transactions you never know when you just might need them or when they might just be in a situation to be in your life again you know like the military taught me this because you move around so much and like in the military it's understood that you know just because you're going to be in a certain place for only two years it doesn't mean you should not become part of the community and make friendships and laugh and cry and have really good close friendships just because you're going to leave or they're going to leave you do that everywhere you're planted and maybe at some point you'll be somewhere long term that's the dream in the military is just to come home for a long time but it doesn't mean that you should not form relationships everywhere you go like some of my best friends I've known for well over a decade and I met them in the military and we might talk once every two weeks once every month way last once every six months and then hey I'm driving through your area of the country and then you stay with them for years you know and it's like things never changed you know and yeah it's just like opening up and forming a close relationship is always worth it because you never know where that's going to lead when you might resume that relationship you know it's just I hope this is making sense and I think it's it's not transactional I think it's okay right yeah there are some people in our life in our season they're just going to come in they come in for a time and and or they don't that's fine but I also think yeah we don't do the same with friendships as we do with other relationships where you're kind of you're kind of stuck with your family I always say like can't really do much more they're they're there right and when you ask someone to date or or marry like you ask them that question will you marry me all right there's there's commitment yes but with our friends because we only have one word for friend in the English language and I think a lot of people are buddies and paths or drinking acquaintances they're not friends they don't know you being friends with Boris being friends of Boris in the title of this video demands something of me oh you said that the other day and I think we don't like covenant commitment right we never say to our friends hey I think we have a really special friendship here can we can we deepen this or let's let's commit to this like be intentional be intentional right that it's not just if I see you I see you if I don't I don't like don't be afraid to ask for what you need right from people and if they don't give that to you they're not the people for you correct they're just not most people are not you know most people are not that's fine right but when you do find those like because we can only really have five to ten really really close relationships otherwise we just won't have time for anything else right you know but like if you find one of those people that is the most valuable that you'll ever find so I give it a chance right you know and you never know like maybe somebody you meet now and then it's like well we just didn't vibe or things didn't mesh or they were in whatever situation and then six months later you run into each other again but then you have something to build off if they're not a stranger anymore right so just give it a chance again you know what I mean and be willing if you can to right I mean with zoom and FaceTime we could do things that we couldn't do before so if I move away or Boris moves away well Syracuse ends convenience not connection ends convenience not connection right being in the same city and like splitting means you it's not as convenient anymore but you still have a connection right that's not going anywhere correct and like I mean so Tom used to do this at a college and of course what happens in college everybody moves away everyone you know Jake joined the military and is now who knows where we're home I think North Dakota one of those former states uh no offense uh and so he's far away but sure enough you know Tom sees him at least once a year couple times a year uh other people move away Tom like goes on road trips and sees them and like they get together those connections are there convenience yeah it's less convenient connection is still always there always I remember after graduation and Jake had to report like right after graduation they didn't take very many people because they were back up from football but they wanted him right away yeah and so we were saying goodbye and he goes well thanks for everything that I remember it was a defense mechanism I remember saying I said are you writing me off yeah the last time I said this was the this was the season finale not the series finale oh I like that but this is a season not not yeah the transitions that we have to go through I often think about this on move in day on the college campus and I don't know what it's going to be like for my own daughter when I have to like take her but if an alien landed on earth and watched us drop our kids off on the first day of college yeah they must think they're never going to see them again right like the ending of ET right like you know like there's one in reality they're probably going to go home the next weekend for probably more family weekend but there's something that we have to I always I tell people we have to love each other through the transition you know because the reality is two days after graduation as jigs driving across the country he called yeah right but it's the ending of that chapter and and we don't we do all these things to onward people to a new job to college like they spend a week in orientation but we do a very poor job when people leave take we don't we don't do that well like we don't do it off-boarding yeah like the like the senior class they need to go through certain milestones graduation is that's what it's meant to be academically but what about the socialization it's crazy they graduate they have to be off campus like six o'clock that night all that families are here you're trying to take pictures the parents that we want to get you moved out and get on the road and the student who's been in this whole environment is suddenly just yanked from them yeah without any kind of closing closure right of those friend groups of this like you are living a memory right now we are living a memory yeah right to have like let's let's get this group out to dinner um and reflect on these four years we've had together because this won't happen like this again it's not the other things won't happen right weddings graduate right but this just the eight of us we're just the four yeah you need to you need to take time yeah to do that because otherwise and I see it happen all the time I had one student and they they had a great graduation day very happy upbeat happened right anyway they were fun and they were driving home to Long Island and they pulled in their driveway and they started crying yeah and they told me they said I didn't even see that coming oh yeah like that's what it took for me to realize it's over college is okay yeah because they just didn't give themselves that I think we just have to do that you know well and they were busy going on to the next on to the next senior week this event that event this event that event the words they didn't actually sit there with somebody else and think like well not just what's next but like this is this is my last week in power yes things are changing yeah how does that feel what do you think what does that mean to you what does that mean to me maybe it means the same thing it's like I just feel like if we took time to do that I didn't know that you can have multiple emotions at once yes you're going on to this exciting they are excited to grad school yeah but leaving this behind is very sad is very sad right yeah so like like we talked about like let's let's deal with this grad school is in two months like let's feel these feelings because the feelings are there as a barometer right I think if the weatherman didn't pay attention to the barometer doesn't we would write a tornadoes coming out don't worry about it no yeah right the feelings are there their feedback right it's all feedback yeah why am I anxious about this why am I peace about this like to feel that to be able to ask why am I feeling this or I don't know where this is coming from or like I struggled with depression and I could go through the list right I have good friends a great major school good family I can give you all the reasons why I shouldn't be depressed yeah but I am and I needed help right and thankfully I have people got me home right because I was trying to rationalize it like I shouldn't feel this way but I did you were trying to make it transactional right you're trying to be like well if I have x y z and whatever I should not feel bad right and that's just dumb but we all know as human beings that's not how it works it's like a fight club he's like I had a whole apartment and my wardrobe was almost complete why am I feeling like something is missing oh I need to burn it all down and live in a house with no bathroom and then you know he was more satisfied even though it was a different story the point is the point is your feelings are feedback yes their objective they mean like the feeling itself is objective like I'm angry it's like in my stomach like I feel like I just something's gonna come out angry or I'm sad like my chest feels heavy and just I just want to like sink into this chair and disappear those are that's objective that's how you feel what does it mean is something in you to sit in a room preferably with somebody who really knows you like Tom or by yourself with a journal and figure out and be careful when emotions portray as one thing but actually something else also a lot of times anger will present itself but you're not really angry you're hurt okay but the reaction sometimes is anger like I'm disappointed I can't believe they said this or I'm so mad at them because they did this when you reflect on that it's because you're hurt by their action or by but sometimes anger presents itself as anger like righteous indignation when it's not that you shouldn't be doing that like what does that mean why do you think I shouldn't be doing that but no one's gonna say it's because it makes me feel insecure it makes me feel like you're gonna leave it makes me feel you know bad about myself and this why it's just like no I think you shouldn't be doing that I think that's what you mean by the righteous indignation yeah like oh man that's a big thing is like us trying to control others in our lives or outside of our lives is definitely like there's four fingers pointing back you know you do this there's one one two three pointing back you point and there's one two three pointing back because it always means something about you correct you know I think the righteous indignation one's a big one yep like how dare you do that well what do you mean why can't I live my life this way well because it makes me feel insecure you know or I don't like you chasing your dreams because I feel like I'm not chasing mine just a couple common examples but that's a big one trying to control others because of how you feel inside yep that's a big one yep I think a lot of people and spend my experience will feel two ways you can substitute the word but two ways when they interact with others inspired or inspired or intimidating and that's not on you right the fact that when I hang out with Boris I'm inspired but Boris is not sitting here setting up to inspire time no okay he's just being him we're just hanging out right or if I hang out with somebody else and I'm like man I'm really intimidated by that that's not on them right they're living their best life not shrinking from who they are right living life to their best abilities so why am I intimidated that means more about you but me yeah unless they're like consciously trying to correct you know I just mean everyday interactions with people man I really what they really inspired me or or man I just I feel like I'm not enough when I'm with them well why that's not on that but right it's not coming from them it's on me exactly and like most people would avoid that interaction you know right most people would avoid that like if I'm hanging out with someone who's I don't know objectively better in nine different ways but you know I probably would feel intimidated you know and I probably would avoid spending a lot of time with that person you know yeah but that's on me you know not alone and I see that so often on teams or in church circles or you know man I'm not I'm not as devoted as them or I'm not as faith-filled as them like I can't lift as much weight as they can like but but they're not asking you to right right they're just on their own journey which is totally different from here but you can do it together right you know and Mother Teresa has a quote that I love because so often we think that well in order to be friends with somebody like they want me to be like that and she would always say when people would say I wish I could be like you Mother Teresa said you can't be like me right and I can't be like you right but together we can do something beautiful for God and that's the gift that's the gift of this right that I have certain skills you have certain skills right like one of the things I love about for us is he will just cut right to the chase you know I hate that a wreck right he's very direct very like to a fault literally to a fault and which is I'm working on it true story right when I when I was diagnosed I didn't tell others and I kind of evaded him why because he's a PA so I knew that he knew what cancer was and I hadn't even googled but I had yeah and nor had I said out loud that those three words I have cancer so we were supposed to have breakfast and I kept putting them off and finding them like all right but we'll have breakfast there's been a lot going on and I took a shower and I got out and passed out oh I didn't even know that happened from a panic that same morning oh from the because I didn't want to tell him because I hope it for us to be very direct right it was it was me I was being it was and so finally I was like okay you can't go out you're not ready to be out of the house so have him over oh yeah instead of going to breakfast he invited me over the house right because I thought it was ghosting me correct Tom he doesn't always respond he's busy but like if you have plants he's never missed plants with me right and that morning I hadn't even heard from him I was like what the heck we literally have plants you know and then he's like hey come over to the house instead of the restaurant right yeah and so so I told him right and I can sometimes shy away from being direct with people because I don't want to upset them and you're not trying to but but again use that right use that gift like I know if I'm struggling with something and I tell you you're gonna you're not you're not ditto fritzing around you're gonna be like I'll tell you exactly what I think exactly what you think yeah I'm oh god but but but but without sugarcoating it like I have that capacity right to tell you exactly what it is yes yes and a lot of people won't know and sometimes I need that people need it other times they need sometimes you don't or sometimes you don't have that right coming right but yeah you need mom and dad yes yeah but you use both gifts yes yeah that's build your team but anyway so that morning yeah you know he's like come over to the house yep and so I told him you know I was like I have cancer and he's like whoa right he didn't give me the whole what I had the narrative that I had played what did you think I was gonna say dude that sucks you're gonna die you thought I was gonna say that yeah because you know this you know the reality of life why would I say that to a human being I would never say that to somebody but but we climbed that ladder of inference oh so this is pretty early on you didn't know me that well I knew you well but this was but you say something like that yeah because and I knew that you weren't wrong right I don't want to hear you didn't know that I would not say something like that to a person correct right correct I think you know so often we climb the ladder of inference where let's say I uh right we've all done this I I text Boris and I don't hear from you right and throughout the day I think oh my gosh did I did I do something see he must be mad for him all day and I said then I go back to our last interaction like well I don't I don't think I pissed him off right but man maybe I said this and he took it the wrong way yeah and like throughout the day it just keeps getting and then well what if what if he got in the car accident or what if he oh my gosh what if he's devil who's even gonna know right like and in reality I hear from you later and they're like yeah sorry I like lost my phone it was a whole with our deal I had to like cry back to Alex Bay where I left picked it up like I remember that like oh yeah and then you feel like oh of course right then you know but to to ask the the clarifying question when you need to and don't climb that ladder right so in the shower I have gone from I've got to talk Boris this thing to he's gonna tell me that sucks you're gonna die and now I don't want to hear that so I don't want to talk to him yeah without like why can't you just go to breakfast like you always do with this man and why can't you talk about this the way you've talked about everything else it's a big deal right yeah but we've never shied away from anything but this is a big deal right yes but so is so is divorce so it's a deal yeah yeah but again if it's human and I believe it's we can mention it we have got to do that in society we have got to talk about things yes that we are afraid to talk about I don't understand why there's such what appears to be shame around miscarriage my wife and I haven't nobody talks about it's extremely common and it's no extremely common no one talks about it and as soon as we said we miscarried or oh I did that four times I had to sit right 30 percent I think I'm pretty sure the statistic is around 30% of uh pregnancies or miscarriages yeah extremely common no one talks about it you know I asked a student I asked another student one day I started first time I met them I said who are you and their answer to me was I'm an alcoholic whoa that was what they led me whoa they've been wanting to tell someone that for a while right yeah you know but have the courage to to talk about it because when you when you let it out see when I shared with you what it was that was another step of not letting it control me yes it was out there so now you could help me control it yes I couldn't change it but I could start to wrap my head so we were sitting there at your dining room table right that morning when he told me and I honestly do not remember at lunch I remember sitting there for a long time but I don't remember the interaction well and I just talked about it we did and I remember feeling like nothing has changed sadly a lot of people with a cancer diagnosis lose their friends lose a spouse because those people are afraid to watch a loved one's suffering makes sense they lose their friends and their spouse people divorce people when they're diagnosed with cancer sometimes yep because the pain of is too yeah um and I've been I have been very fortunate that that hasn't happened yet nobody's treating me to closer yeah anything yeah yeah but invite people into it yeah you know um because they they know they can't change it it's just like anything else but a lot of times we think well I don't know what to say I don't know what to do because because we're making about us well there's nothing to do and they don't want anything they just want you to be there literally that's it let's just talk about that or just sit in the rabbit hole with they just let me talk that sucks yep or just sit there yep literally we're just sit there like you don't have to say things you don't have to fill the silence correct we're recording this so we have to fill the silence at least some of the time but like when you're just sitting there with a friend you don't have to say or do anything literally anything yeah I just had a friend go I'm not going to give him any details but I just had a friend go through something hard and we were hanging out and I noticed a lot of the time we were just kind of sitting but I'm sure that friend was happy that we were just sitting together instead of them sitting alone correct we were just sitting there like we talk here and there and sometimes we get into something a little deeper and sometimes it would just be surface level like this guy's really blue today it's more blue than yesterday but a lot of the time it was just we were just there just another heartbeat around yep and like that's as important as talking it's not more you know you don't have to do anything you don't have to like deliver value or prove yourself by being there and like by saying something or by doing something or by cleaning their house or cooking or just be just you just being there is more important than all especially when someone's going through something one of the things that happened at Lemoine another lesson I learned from a student they came by and they were really hurting and I remember this was years ago and I thought well I said to them do you want me to call the wellness center or maybe call a friend of yours because they were very depressed they were they had gone through a breakup and they were crying it really upset and and so I asked those questions and then they said that's why I came here and that really scored instead of the wellness center friend they came to town and ask yourself sometimes why did they come to me I had somebody reach out to me a year ago right around this time and they texted me and they said are you free for breakfast tomorrow yeah and my initial reaction I was about I was literally writing no I already have plenty and I I stopped and I thought this person who could have breakfast with anybody is asking me if I'm free tomorrow hold on right so I I deleted it and I said sure how about 11 o'clock at Ruston's which was a document right because I knew that I have already had eight o'clock plans with a friend at finally hours but that other person didn't need to know that so I had my eggs at finally hours and then I had my pancakes pumpkin pancakes at Ruston's at 11 o'clock town's got a sweet tooth like no other but neither person knew so many pancakes right but all the syrup I know that about Tom but yeah a little donut hauler hi you know you know he loves his donuts you want to make this man happy you get him donuts but not any donuts green hills don't green hills the best the worst and unchanged since I was a kid good so good so good yes and I interrupted well right so Boris went on vacation you were traveling somewhere are you talking about this person at don't know you don't know oh we're still on donuts okay and he wrote is that I got something for you right and so we get together for breakfast and he got me a pair of donut socks yep right yeah that though those are the things like that's what life is about you know little no just little tiny donuts or socks or donut socks right that you you saw something it's like you paid attention yes to my life yes you were astonished you don't agree with it yes but you did something about it yes right and so now I know forever I have so many socks I know who gave me this right and I know it's it's it's common I think we wore them together yes that was Thanksgiving thank you if I can find that photo I'm going to post it there's a picture of me and Tom in our matching donut socks just like you know holding our photo up so you can see like that they're matching yep yeah or maybe mine had coffee near set doughnuts I don't remember yeah but yeah yeah we did that yep and being able to find out the humor right so as he's teasing me about donuts you had a picture up on instagram not that long after I had about eating french fries sure did and I'm like aren't these just fried potatoes and here I'm eating fried yeast what's the difference it's the same thing so I'm not going into my spiel about donuts that's funny I just think it's a problem I don't know that they get oh that okay I'm not going to go into this it was a whole thing it was a whole thing at work it was a whole thing okay yeah yeah yeah because my last job I worked at a primary care office that also specialized in weight loss medicine like we'd be putting people on medications to help them eat less so that they can you know lose weight and their metabolic symptoms with you know some sort of we go away all their like diabetes cholesterol all that stuff and this lady that we have been treating for years with weight loss medications brought in donuts and I lost it I was like I just had just exploded I was just done oh man I was not happy that day after I that's when I started hating donuts after I had my kid I said what should I do with my diet and the doctor said just drink a lot of water limit protein like don't go keto um drink your water and um and watch your salt intake and I said to him I said can I still have cheese and carbs and he said yeah so I'm like I'm good I'm good Tom runs on cars well he's Italian yeah Italians are a different breed they like lose weight when they have pasta instead of gain weight like I don't know the Italians are different I don't get that yeah anyway I should probably check my messages because I did promise to take someone to a motorcycle shop um so any closing remarks no who are you that's where we started that's where we started who are you and then whoever you are know that you can be a gift through who you are and not what you do at the end of every episode I'll leave you with Fred Rogers always says yes you've made this day a special day and you know how by just your being you there's only one person in the whole world like you and that's you yourself and people can like you exactly as you are they don't have to like you doesn't mean they will they'll still appreciate that they can yeah thanks for good to be with you good to be with you as always until next time another Tom talk anyway y'all no uh what was it gonna call this video I had it oh yeah I think I'm gonna call this video the low minutes problem I'm gonna call this video the low minutes problem yeah because if you like listen back and I hope that you will Tom's whole like purpose in life that he discovered is listening to people being that person that actually truly like listens and appreciates which very few people do uh so Tom's basically made a career slash hobby slash purpose out of it just listening to people and appreciating them for who they are because he looked outside this window on campus and noticed everybody was walking alone everybody was walking like with their heads and their phones we're just looking up at the sky or at the ground and just alone everyone was just being alone and that's our problem right now that's our epidemic of loneliness because people aren't connecting they're transacting they're doing things sometimes but they're not together they're not connecting and if you can ask somebody a question out of care and concern so often we don't ask questions because we feel like we shouldn't be nosy the person on the other end of that will usually just see that as well they care about me if you ask it in the right time and place and in the right way don't call it out in public or text them right like say I notice such are you really okay yeah they can't believe that in this busy world that you would take the time to notice them so all those people in your life like risk the ask don't be afraid to risk the ask and also if you're going to ask you better sit there and listen you know don't like open this up and then just shut them down great they start talking and it's like what you asked you can't just be here for nine seconds you know and don't try to fix it yeah just hold it yeah just hold it I like that and follow up I think that's the secret song that's what it is right like after I meet with somebody for the first time I will often send an email and I mean it because I I think well they came in and trusted me with XYZ I will often send an email but thank you for allowing me the privilege to be in your company to hear some of your story right or do that a few days later that goes a long way people can't believe that you even remember that you talked to them yeah in this transactional world people can't believe that you actually meant something to them correct yeah more than just a transaction yeah go do that do that for someone today take out an hour of your day that you were going to spend and watching a show scrolling yeah go just talk to someone someone you know already preferably just ask them hey who are you and they'd be like what are you talking about dude be be the difference that makes all the difference in somebody's life today yeah go do that until next time


Hey kids, how y'all doing. My name is David China. I'm an engineer here with the Columbia Fire Department. I drive the truck from call to call. I've been with the department a little over 10 years. Some of the things I do when I first get in, I have to come in, I have to check my truck out, check the tires and everything, make sure everything's ready to go because I got to get you to and from everywhere. I chose this job because it's something I love. I love helping people. I have my pants and my boots. So basically when we get ready for a call, take my duty boots off and I put these right here on.  Again, blasts off. Next, put my flash hood on. So I can protect my ears and my neck.  My air pack on. Make sure everything's nice and sparkly. Next, one of the most important pieces, put my air mask on. Let's go. Put my helmet on. All ready to go. Not quite yet. Put my air pack on. Now we have on our air packs a microphone so you can hear me a little better now. Then last, and certainly not least, I'll put your gloves on. Here you go, fight some fire. All right, first and foremost, you have to make good grades at school. Finish with a high school diploma at least. Go through the regular firefighting training. What I have to do for my specific job, you have to go through different driver training courses, learn how to operate the truck. You go to classes throughout your career. Reading, writing, math, and science. Every day I have to read different reports that are being sent out by our chiefs. I have to write reports. I have to know a lot of math to operate my truck. And it's a lot of science into the way things work here at the fire department. So this is what I'm running my truck. A lot of the things that I have to do, I have to take into different calculations how much water I'm getting into my truck, how much water I'm putting out, I have to calculate if my pump could take that to send the guy's water. One of the most exciting and interesting things is something different every day. Something's different. It's a lot of things we might run the same but every shift, every day, there's something different that we run that we've never seen before. One of the things, do good in school. Listen to your parents, your teachers, and the older people who tell you to do the right things because it helps out the lower. What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were in school? One of the things that I know now that I wish I knew in school was when you get older, there's no spring break, no summer breaks. Respect, accountability, and integrity are three of the main characteristics you need for this job because you want to meet people that you've never seen before at their worst day. So you need to respect what they're going through. You need to be accountable when they're all cost. If you mess something up, you need to be the one to own up to that and integrity. That means you need to do the right thing when no one is even watching. I want to thank you all for spending this time with me. I hope you can take the fire department and think of it as a career. This is a great career. I've been doing it for 10 plus years. I can't find myself doing anything else. Thanks, guys.