Episode 11: Sticks and Stones

Welcome back to wisdom from the aerial view, a podcast about compassion, kindness, optimism, purpose, tragedy, mistakes, friendship, and even death. But viewing all these things in a different stress-free way. The podcast is based on a book by the same name. It's about looking at things from the aerial view, the superpower that can change your life and this world. And just so everybody remembers, I'm joined each week by the author of this book, Dr. Mark Klein. Boy, are you short. See, I started the podcast with an insult, a microaggression. Why? Because you've dedicated an entire chapter in this book on this topic. You call the chapter, Sticks and Stones. So my question to you is, why did you include this in your book? And how, in fact, do we handle the hurt that this kind of imposes on us. Why sticks and stones?

It's really great question and good morning to you. One of the things that I've noticed about our current society is that we all or so many of us seem to feel victimized. And the irony is that victimhood is guaranteed to make you feel terrible. Short term, long term, it's just a terrible strategy. You're familiar, I know, the...

Good morning.

famous book by Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. For those people who are not, A, you should read it. It was published in 1940s, I believe. Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor. He was freed from a Nazi concentration camp. He was also a psychiatrist, even while he was in the camp. And he has a very interesting take on his experience.

Indeed.

We really don't want to talk necessarily about the Holocaust here or terrible things that happen to human beings. But what we do want to talk about is power. The one thing that Viktor Frankl learned and has tried to teach all of us and in this era clearly unsuccessfully is that each of us does have a superpower. We determine how we feel about everything. And what Viktor Frankl found was the one thing the Nazis could not take away from him was his decision on how he felt about everything that happened. And that sounds rather simple, right? Well, how did that work for him? What he said was the Nazis or any group can take away so many things from you, but what they can't take away is a decision on how you view what is occurring, how you interpret what's happening. That is for sure a superpower. No doubt about it. And I, as I think I've told you and said before that if there was one thing I could, if I could teach young people one thing, that would be it. You're not a victim. You have complete control how you feel about things. So you and I grew up together. And I don't know if you remember this, because this was the juvenile sophomoric idiotic boys who did this. So you might not have been involved in this, although you were one of the funniest people in our junior high school and high school. So perhaps you are familiar with this phenomenon, but we had what were called rank out sessions. Yeah. You remember the rank? Yeah, right. You know, actually it was a great skill to learn. I didn't appreciate it until much later. But a rank out session is you just sit around and you insult each other as quickly and as fiercely as you can.

yes, I still do them.

Nowadays, people look at this and go, what? Yeah, we would insult each other. We'd insult our families. We'd insult our mothers. We'd insult anybody we could think about. I'll give you an example of a joke. A good friend of mine said to me, he parked, this is later on in life, but we were in college. And he said, I can't figure out where I, I can't remember where I parked my car.

Yeah.

And I said, did you look in your nose? Because he has a gigantic nose. And this is the kind of thing we would say to each other. And nowadays, they that's so unkind, that's so cruel. No, no, no, no. Because all the power lies with the recipient of the joke. If somebody, people say, look, I hope I don't offend you. And I look at them go, look, you're not going to offend me. Give it your best shot, but you're not going to offend me. Because why in the world would I give you that power? I don't even know you. mean, whatever. It doesn't matter. Same thing with these rank out sessions. It's like,

No. And now they say, that's all.

I get to decide how I feel about it. Most of the time we just laughed. mean, all the time we laughed. I don't remember anybody getting personally insulted by taking an insult personally, like, oh, you're not my friend anymore. You're a horrible person. No, we just laughed it off. And of course, I had no idea what great training that was for life. We just did it for fun. But two skills developed from that. One is you had to think really quickly. You had to learn to respond quickly. The faster that you could respond, the more...

Right.

the more value your retort had. You kind of rose up in the ranks, right? he's quick, you know? So that's number one. The other thing is, the more important thing is that nobody can offend you unless you let them. How about that?

Except, except Mark, when we were doing those things and the rank out, those were our friends. But, but nowadays these are people who are ranking on you and they're not your friends. So how do you separate that and say, look, you can't hurt me because sometimes it does hurt.

Only if you, no, no, it never hurts unless you let it hurt. You get to decide. That is what Viktor Frankl has been trying to tell us. Right? So you don't have to feel badly when somebody insults you. Somebody says, you know, whether based on your race, your religion, your height, your color of your eyes, it doesn't matter. Right? Why would you give somebody the power to determine how you feel? What Viktor Frankl made very clear is that you have the power. The recipient has the power. So you started out with this thing about calling me short. Well, A, it's accurate. So I'm not the smallest guy in the world, but I'm not the tallest guy either. And I'm also bald, by the way. People who just listening don't know that, but I've lost a good part of my hair.

Yeah. I'm going to stop you. Do you know why I, when I was thinking about this, what I was going to do to rank on you, the only thing I thought of, I wanted to be not, I wanted to be less obnoxious. So I thought, well, short is okay. I didn't want to say you're bald or whatever. It's interesting how I didn't want to insult you, but I wanted to sort of make it in a sort of a humorous way, but to say something that was a sticks and stones kind of thing. So I tempered what I could have said and I just... made fun of you because you were short. Kind of interesting, isn't it?

Okay, so if you would say I'm bald and you were trying to be mean to me, that's different than if you're trying to just be my friend, you'd be funny. You said before that we were friends, we were racking on each other. Okay, well, friends have a lot more power than people you don't have to met. So why would you let a stranger or somebody on a social media feed have an effect on you when you don't even know this person, who cares what they think, right? Now, let's say they say something and you go,

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's right. I am a jerk. Okay. That's helpful. Right. Somebody pointed something out that was true. Okay. Now I got to fix it. I got to be less of a jerk. But so you can take the input and improve, use it to improve yourself, but to allow it to make you sad. You know, the whole idea of these microaggressions, they're the anti-Victor Frankl. It's like Victor Frankl was rolling over in his grave because it's exactly the opposite. A microaggression because you ask somebody, for instance, you know, somebody who's clearly not

Yes.

whose native language is not English, and you say to them, you speak English so well. Technically, that's a microaggression in our world. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous, right? So, you know, it's probably a compliment to begin with. And if it wasn't, who cares? Don't give the power away ever. Don't give the power of how you feel to anybody else because it's yours and yours alone. So,

Right.

We talk about sticks and stones because you and I grew up in the era where our parents would say all the time, sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never harm you. And now it's like words can harm you, words can kill you, words can make your life miserable, can change the... I mean, come on, really? How do we go from sticks and stones can break your bones and words can never harm you to where we are now? We got that way because people forgot the lesson. that each of us is in complete control of how we feel. You know, we've talked about this before, I believe. But we interpret the world, our brain interprets the world. So anything we see and hear is then processed in our brain and given a value. It's assigned a value. So we might see a tulip garden in full bloom and we look at that and go, that's beautiful. And we smile. Or we might see a tornado wreck a building and go, that's terrible, right? But the truth is the tornado and the tulip garden have no intrinsic value at all. They are nothing. They have no value. They're not good, bad and different. There's nothing. They only become get valued by our interpretation. Right. So so each of us has the ability to interpret the world the way we see fit, which is why I can't watch. I can't watch violence. I cannot watch a movie, a TV show with violence. All my friends know it. They make fun of me. My wife calls me a weenie. I can't. Now, I can't explain to you exactly why. It comes from a very deep place because I know it's wrong in the world. And because I spend a lot of time in the aerial view and I have a different perspective of the world than many people do, I look at this and I go, I know this is the worst thing ever. Violence is the worst. So I can't participate. But most people can watch, you know, a lot of people, their favorite movie ever is The Godfather, which is very violent, right? Or Goodfellas, all these other movies, right? And they love these movies. They go crazy about how good these movies are.

So I can't participate. most people can watch, you know, a lot of people, their favorite movie ever is The Godfather, which is very violent, right? Or Goodfellas, or all these other movies, right? They love these movies. They go crazy about it, good movies. And yet I can't watch them. Okay, we're seeing the same movie. The movie doesn't have any value. It's what I assign its value. For me, I assign it to be horrendous. And other people say it's fantastic art. That's the point. We each interpret.

and yet I can't watch them. Okay, we're seeing the same movie. The movie doesn't have any value. It's what I assign as value. For me, I assign it to be horrendous and other people say it's fantastic art. That's the point. We each interpret the world through our individual brain. Nothing has any intrinsic value, nothing. No matter how heinous it is, it doesn't have any value until we assign a value to it. That's a very important point.

And tell me what you mean by intrinsic value. Value in what sense? It has no value.

Okay, is a hurricane good or bad?

obviously bad.

No, it's not obviously bad. It's not obviously anything. It's it. No, it's you have decided hurts people. But nature might say, you know, these buildings that they built on this barrier island don't belong here because every 10 years or 20 years, I, Mother Nature, going to come along and just level it. So I don't know what these people are doing building these things here. I'm just going to because that's nature. just is. It's the way the planet works is because of the heating and the cooling and so on and so forth. It just

Yes, it is, though. It hurts people.

A hurricane doesn't have any intrinsic value. assign it, wait, wait, hang on. We assign it a value. We say,

But not only did it destroy the buildings, there were people inside the buildings who lost their lives. That has no value? Yeah.

and we think it's terrible. No, no, not by itself. Of course, you and I would say, that's horrible. We cry for any loss of life. You and I share this thing. I'm, you know, I just a joke. I've told you I cry commercials, you know, but I am a softy, right? I hate when anybody is injured, harmed in any way. So if you say to me, is a hurricane a bad thing? I would say, yes, to me, I interpret a hurricane as a terrible thing. But to the earth,

Okay.

Okay.

A hurricane is just a natural occurrence. We assign the value to it. That's very hard to wrap your head around. You have to, and here's another good example, which I think I might've mentioned this in one of our podcast episodes, but when we watch a lion tear after a wildebeest and catch it and tear it to shreds, many of us, not all of us, many of us would be horrified. The lion's just fine with it. The other animals go, that's the way it happened. That's the way the world is. Lion chases wildebeest, lion eats, wildebeest dies. The lion's not upset. We're upset. So it's the same event. So what's the value of the event? There is no intrinsic value to the event. It's the interpretation of the event. That lion has interpreted the event through his eyes that I need to eat. This is how it works. I eat wildebeests. This is what I do. Perfectly fine. I'm not upset that I have blood all over me or all over. It doesn't matter. You and I go, oh, that poor wildebeest just got ripped to shreds. You know, that poor, innocent wildebeest. It's nothing.

said. So it's the same event. So what's the value of the event? There is no intrinsic value to the event. It's the interpretation of the event. That lion has interpreted the event through his eyes that I need to eat. This is how it works. I eat, will to eat. This is what I do. It's perfectly fine. I'm not upset that I have blood all over me or all over. It doesn't matter. You and I go, oh, that poor

has any intrinsic value. It's all determined by what value we place on it through our interpretation of the world we see. So yes, to us, a hurricane that displaces people, that injures people, that kills people, that wipes out property, we go, that's such a terrible thing. It is a terrible thing to us. In our view, we interpret it that way. And we're very comfortable with that interpretation, and we should be. But that doesn't mean the hurricane has any intrinsic value by itself. It's our interpretation of the event. Human lives are lost.

intrinsic value is all determined by what value we place on it through our interpretation of the world we see. So yes, to us a hurricane that displaces people, that injures people, that kills people, that wipes out property, we go, that's such a terrible thing. It is a terrible thing to us. In our view we interpret it that way and we're very comfortable with that interpretation. should be. But that doesn't mean the hurricane has any intrinsic value by itself. It's our interpretation of the event, right? Human lives are lost.

So animal lives are lost every day. You step on a bug outside or somebody destroys an anthill. So 100,000 ants are killed instantaneously. People aren't going crazy about that. We value human life different. Why? Humans are just part of the overall natural. species, one of the many species on this planet, why are we so upset about them? Because we're them. We take it very personally, right? We're less concerned about the ants or the wasp nest that we got rid of. We just killed a bunch of wasps, right? And we think that's a great idea because those wasps are going to get us, right? But you see the point, it's how we interpret an event. None of them have any value. And the whole point of the story is that that means that we have the power to interpret every event.

species on this planet. so upset about them. Because we're them. We take it very personally, right? We're less concerned about the ants or the wasp nest that we got rid of. We just killed a bunch of wasps, right? And we think that's a great idea, because those wasps are to us, right? But you see the point? It's how we interpret an event. None of them have any value. The whole point of the story is that that means that we have the power to interpret everything and everything that happens to us. So we don't need to give people the power to insult us.

and everything that happens to us. So we don't need to give people the power to insult us. We control that ability. We maintain that power. So this whole idea of aggressions or being offended is silly. Don't do it.

We control that today. We maintain that power. So this whole idea of aggression for being offended is still there. So let me ask you this. It seems to me, and I could be wrong, there's much more, I we've used the terminology nowadays is bullying. We're a lot of bullying. Kids on the playground are bullying and people are bullying. And then we have people in high offices who are saying things about people, calling people names. Now, sticks and stones. But why do you think that has become the norm and why has it become accepted? And why is it acceptable when somebody casts aspersions at other people they make, they give them nicknames that are horrible? Again, it's a value to that. But why do you think that is? Is it more acceptable nowadays to say things to people that might try to cause harm, try to be hurtful? Is that more acceptable?

It's not more acceptable to me. It's not more acceptable to you. I don't like it when anybody does it. What I'm saying is, so we can control how we act. So I'm not going to call you a name. I love you. I care about you. But I'm generally not going to call anybody a name these days. mean, maybe in my mind, I might say something, but I'm going to try not to do that. Why? Because I'm responsible for my own behavior. I like to say you can never be, you're never diminished by the misdeeds of others.

Right, yeah, right.

only by your own. So if somebody acts inappropriately or in an unkind way or whatever, it doesn't change who you are or your value, right? Only you can mess that one up. You can improve your worth and you can diminish your worth by how you behave, how you treat others primarily. But however, how other people do it has no effect on me in that sense. So I don't think it's become acceptable. I think people have figured that they that

So I don't think it's become acceptable. I think people have figured that A, it's a way to get short on happiness, what we talked about in the previous podcast, that you can feel better by putting somebody down.

A, it's a way to get short-term happiness, what we talked about in the previous podcast, that you can feel better by putting somebody down, at least temporarily. And number two is they hide behind a computer screen. They're not standing in front of somebody calling them a name. I think I start that chapter in the book with the famous incident between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Oscars where Will Smith amazingly walks up and whacks Chris Rock across the face for a joke.

And number two is they hide behind a computer screen. They're not standing in front of somebody calling them a name. You know, I think I start that chapter in the book with a famous incident between Will Smith and Chris Rock. At the Oscars, Will Smith amazingly walks up and whacks Chris Rock in front of the face for a joke. Right. Completely inappropriate. That's a macroaggression, right? That's not a microaggression. That's a macroaggression. And most of us...

Okay, completely inappropriate. That's a macroaggression, right? That's not a microaggression. That's a macroaggression. And most of us, although not all of us, if you listen to the comments by the celebrities the following day, some were perfectly fine. he was standing up for his wife. What? What? Standing up for his wife? He wouldn't smack somebody in the face. No, no. His wife is perfectly fine. She doesn't have to get upset. She has control over how she feels. Enid (16:50.4) Right, right. is actually what Chris Rock did. I found his reaction astounding. He just sort of took it and went on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

She's in charge of her reactions. She doesn't have to be offended. She could just laugh it off or ignore it, which is what she should have done, right?

Astounding. Astounding. Yeah. I would have smacked the guy as hard as I could. Yeah, because I would have reacted instantaneous. I wouldn't have been as cool as Chris Rock. I wouldn't have been as wise and measured as him. I give him a lot of points for that. Maybe I would have. What?

see? You know...

How do you think he did that? How do you think he did that? mean, maybe he was looking at it from the aerial view. Maybe he was just looking at it as an observer and saying, okay, this guy came up on the stage in front of millions of people, smacked me in the face, and he did that, and he just, I don't know. I mean, it was astounding. And again, I'm serious when I say maybe he looked at it from a different perspective.

Well, I give him a lot of credit because imagine how fast he had to process that. Right. So he had he got he feels this stinging. This is a vicious slab. He feels it right. He feels his visceral pain and he very quickly processes 100 million people are watching this. I have to be the bigger person. I can't let myself I can't look like an idiot. OK. And he did that in like three milliseconds. Right. How incredible that was. So impressive. Right. So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's very admirable because he, this was a physical assault, which is different than a verbal assault. This is not, this is sticks and stones. This is not words, right? That's right. He got, he got pummeled. So yeah, it was quite incredible. But even at that, he was able to amazingly compose himself and recognize the situation and appreciate. Yeah, he did have a different perspective that, that

This was stones. This was stones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

I have to react in a very specific way now to A, keep the show going, B, to maintain my dignity. I was quite a, I've never met the guy. I hope I meet him one day and I would just compliment him on that extraordinary response. Because it was a response. It wasn't a lack of response.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, yes, it was. And you know, nowadays, again, getting back to this whole notion of bullying, there are anti-bullying societies and there are people who are taking to the streets about that kind of thing. But what you're saying is that we have the power over that. So here's the question that I have for you. You told the story in a couple of... podcast ago about you were playing tennis and you guys got to the tennis court five minutes early you got on and the long story but the people who wanted to come afterwards said you were there for too long and the guy that you were playing tennis with wasn't about to be bullied but you were you were gonna lose your temper and you're gonna let them know what you thought and he didn't so you were looking at it from the street view

Oh yeah, I smack in the middle of this review.

And he was, your tennis partner, was in the aerial view, right? Because he let them, he just.

He was certainly way more mature than I was. And I love this guy. I, yeah. Yeah. But I got another good story for you. This is what I think what I'm, what I really want to get at here. A few years ago, a number of years ago, I was walking outside of a community swimming pool. I'd taken one of my kids to the pool. We were walking out from the pool and there was a family in front of us, mother, father, two young kids. And the mother,

Yeah.

Yeah.

was saying to the child, something must have happened at the pool and said, don't let anybody ever take advantage of you. You stand up for yourself. Okay, so was all I could do not to like zip around them and say, wait, there's a better message. And of course I didn't do this because my wife was with me and she would have thought I was completely insane. But what I wanted to say is that's not what you want to tell your kid. What you want to tell your kid is, You are in complete control of how you feel. And no matter what anybody says or does to you, you get to decide how you want to react. And you can be the bigger person and you can be the more mature person and you can be the more measured person and the kind of person and don't let that other person egg you on and make you let go of who you are. In other words, don't give the power of how you feel to somebody else. It's yours and yours alone. That's what we should be teaching children. The most important thing, don't let people take advantage of you. I'll give you an example. So I've been taken advantage of, you've been taken advantage of, and sometimes it's serious, and sometimes it's not quite so serious. So if your health or wellbeing or some moral stand you need to take is in jeopardy, well, okay, fine, then you might want to make a stand at that point, but most of the time it's not quite so important. If somebody takes advantage of you, here's a very street view kind of thing. You're in your car, somebody cuts you off, right? So you could do a few things. You could honk your horn, you can give them the finger, you can race around them and cut them off. You could do all these things. And I've done pretty much not all of them, but most of them at some point, until I realized one day that what am I getting upset about? I'm not the jerk. The guy that just cut me off is the jerk. I'm fine. I'm behaving appropriately. Why am I upset? Why am I allowing that person's poor behavior to determine how I feel? Why is it making my blood pressure go up? Why does it make me hyperventilate? Why is rage starting to pour through me? The whole thing about that is that we have forgotten that we have the ability to determine how we react to everything. That's the Viktor Frankl message. That's the point. So now if somebody cuts me off,

or gives me the finger for whatever. I've had that. I had that happen. I think we were driving in Italy, actually, my wife and I. And maybe I was going too slowly and somebody gave me the finger. And I started laughing, right? What, am going to chase this guy? No, I'm thinking, look how upset he is. His blood pressure's up. He's ticked off, whatever. That's his problem. I shouldn't make it my problem. This is such a powerful lesson to learn. This is such a great tool in our toolbox, especially for younger people.

Hmm.

Don't give other people the power to determine how you feel. That's the Viktor Frankl message. It's the most important thing you can teach a younger person or really any of us.

So you would never ever kind of let's set the record straight. So somebody says something to you that maybe is inappropriate, they're trying to rankle you. You would never turn back and say something to the effect that what they're doing is wrong. You just let it slide off your back. Is that what you do?

more and more. Now, as I said in an earlier podcast, I have been a jerk in my life. I've done all these things wrong. I've reacted. I've yelled, screamed, blah, blah. Like I said, never hit anybody in the overall scheme of life. My reactions have been relatively muted. They've almost been verbal or whatever, but I'm not proud of them. And it took me a long time to learn that lesson. Way too long, right? So yes, if somebody says something... Look, if they're threatening your life or your life's in danger or they're... That's a different story, but assuming these are just words, who cares? And, go ahead, I'm sorry.

So it's about self-control, isn't it? I mean, we sort of lose control when somebody does something to us and we naturally want to do something back. And what you're saying, I think, is we have to exert some self-control over ourselves because we are, it's ourself and we are the masters of that and we can either make it bother us or put it in its proper perspective, which is it shouldn't bother us at all.

Well, that's the irony of all this. This is the incredible thing. So yes, your natural reaction is to react, right? Almost everybody's natural action is to react. But the truth is you don't have to react. You get to decide how you feel. So if you say to somebody, you need to exercise more self-control, or your therapist says to you, you need to exercise more self-control, or your teacher says, when you're a kid, you need to exercise more self-control. Well, great. What the heck does that mean? How do I do that? I'd love to, but I stink at it. And let me tell you, I stunk at it, right? Because nobody ever told me the single most important thing, which is you get to determine how you feel. You are not a victim of somebody else's words or deeds. You get to decide, right? And I can't stress this enough. I've said this a thousand times already, but you know, everybody should read Man's Search for Meaning. It's Victor Frankl had it right on the money, right? One thing that cannot be taken from a man or a woman, he used the word man, but...

Think

He meant all men and women is how they feel. It's how they decide to react to a given situation that remains in his or her control. He did it in a concentration camp. You think we ought to be able to handle it when somebody cuts us off? That's the point. What a superpower. it took me, I said, too long to learn it, too long to incorporate it into my life. But that's what we should be teaching every single student. The first day you get to school, first thing you should learn.

is how they feel, how they decide to react to a given situation. That remains in his or her control. He did it in a concentration camp. I think we ought to be able to handle it when somebody cuts us off. That's the point. What a superpower. It took me, I said, too long to learn it, too long to incorporate it into my life, but that's what we should be teaching every single student. The first day you get to school, first thing you should learn, every year.

Every year, first grade, second grade, third grade, first thing that anybody should tell you, for middle year, beginning of the year, end of the year, every time, this is what we should be teaching our kids again and again and again and again and again. You want to see bullying go away? Bullies only succeed because people react to them. I've been bullied. I was bullied at art. We didn't go to the same elementary school, but I got bullied in my elementary school for sure. Remember I told you was the shortest kid, the youngest kid, the whole thing. I got bullied, right?

Yeah.

And it was very, of course, I was like, you know, a kid, right? But had somebody started to train me, it's training, it's practice. All these things we talk about in this podcast, how to get to the aerial view, how to remove yourself from the page and become the disinterested observer. We're going to talk about anxiety at length one of these days. How do you control your anxiety? Wow, how great is that, to be able to control your anxiety? Fantastic, guess what? It's the same principle. All these things are tools and they take practice.

And you reacted. And you reacted. Of course. Right.

So if we continue to teach our young people, you are in control of how you feel. Nobody else has that power. I'm going to prove it to you. I'm going to show you how it works. And if you do that and you teach kids and you arm them, bullies become powerless. What? They don't get any reaction. It doesn't work.

Yeah, and you got there later in life. mean, weren't there as a kid, but what was the turning point? What made you say, no, I have to change? What was the turning point?

too late. No.

reading that book.

Change your life.

It changed, I don't know if it changed my life, but it gave me that lesson. Like, oh, Mark, you're such a dope. You've been such a dope. Why have you taken the bait? Why do you continually take the bait? Right? You you're talking about politics all the time. We see that in politics. Don't take the bait. Right? You are in control of how you feel. You don't need to react and go crazy. And once you understand that you have that power and you practice that power and you get examples of how that power works,

Yeah. Yeah.

Eventually it becomes natural, but it takes time.

Yeah, but you know, it's interesting because politics has become that. Politics has become a bait fest. I mean, that's what they do. Both sides, it doesn't matter. And but this is also what we see on television day in and day out. We see these people, both sides, not trying to solve anything, but just trying to go after each other. And I think that inculcates us all as a society that we become sticks and stones. I mean, it's what it is.

It doesn't, but here's the thing. This is what you, when you realize it doesn't have to be this way, then it all falls apart. If we start teaching kids at a young age how this works, that they do actually have this power, we prove it to them. We show them, you know, whether they don't actually, know, 10 year olds don't have to read man's search for meaning, but the idea, the concepts should be taught from very, very early on and they work and they empower us and they.

Right.

lift us and they remove the anxiety, they remove the stress, they make us more complete. We become people of substance who can then go on and complete our mission of making that evolution from selfish to selfless, from inward to outward focus, because you recognize you're in complete control of how you feel and respond to any situation. That is an amazing power.

Here's what we need to do. We need to take 535 copies of wisdom from the area of view, the superpower that can change your life and this world, 535 copies, and bring it up to Congress and give it to every single member of Congress. Because you're right. It's all about how we treat each other and why we treat each other in certain ways. And getting back to one other podcast we did about happiness, I think when we start treating people in a better way,

you

We'll all be much happier. I absolutely believe that. Yeah.

100%. that is a fact. That is a fact. And you know it as well as anybody because you spent your life doing it. But when you help other people, you're going to feel better. I always say, when things are tough, go help somebody else. You're going to feel a lot better.

Yeah.

You're exactly right. So let's end this podcast, which I always do, with your own words at the conclusion, because I think it's important to always remember and reflect on what you said. And you say, and I quote, words, unlike sticks and stones, cannot harm you unless you choose to let them do so. You alone have the power to determine how you feel about any situation. Never give it away. You have any final words, Doc?

Since those were my final words, we'll leave it at that.

We'll leave it at that. Thanks for listening. Thanks for seeing us and we'll see you next week.

Thank you, Eda. Thank you, everybody. Have a great day.

Thank you, Mark.