I dream about a simple life

As I watched a fascinating documentary about longevity,  I couldn't help but begin reflecting on my own life. I often find myself longing for a simple rural life and close-knit communities.

Transcript

Life, Longevity, and Lifestyle Reflections

Amjed 0:00

Question of the day . Will I live to be a hundred ? Actually , that's not really the question of the day , but it's kind of the topic of the day . The real question is , if I live to be a hundred , will I look back on my life and be content with the journey that I was on , or will I have regrets that I didn't take a different path ? And so that's really the reflection in today's episode , and I hope that it stimulates some of that reflection for you as well .

Amjed 0:37

Hi , this is Amjad , a simple , beautifully broken man living in a complex world . Join me as I navigate the dark and bright spots of life , sharing vulnerably and reflecting deeply along the way . May you find some benefit here . That is through me , not from me . I must warn you to enter at your own risk , for in this room my humanity is showing . Welcome , my fellow humans , to episode 51 of my humanity is showing , and this is actually my third take .

Amjed 1:18

So I recorded about 45 seconds , had no idea what was going on , and I recorded another four minutes and felt like I was just blabbing . I didn't even or blathering , I guess , is the word . So I'm trying again . I took a few moments to reflect and just take some deep breaths . Maybe I felt like , maybe I was trying too hard , or I'm not sure what it was , but anyway , stopping that and we'll start afresh . So in today's episode I had a few topics in mind that have just recently come up , but I thought I'd start with the first one , and that is I guess it's related to life in general . Sorry , I just remembered the words to a old Depeche Mode song that I used to really like . It's like life in general in the world we live in . But , yeah , somebody , somebody the name of the song is somebody . If you ever get a chance , it's a really neat song , anyway , but you know , just life in general , and so the topic . So where was I going with that ?

Amjed 2:28

Over the holidays I was spending some time with family and we actually watched a documentary on longevity and longevity here , meaning what makes some people live longer than others , and you know , is it what they're eating ? Is it their lifestyle ? Is it a combination of all these different things ? Like what ? What is that that allows certain people go to yawn ? Oops , sorry about that . It's been a pretty hectic week and since I don't edit , I can't take that out unless I delete and start over . So anyway , yeah , what makes some people live longer than others ?

Amjed 3:09

And you know , I've been telling everybody it's like I made this big mistake over the holidays and they're like what happened ? I was like I watched this documentary on longevity and they highlighted some places on earth like Okinawa , japan , ikariya , greece , sardinia , italy this is just me going off a memory Costa Rica and Loma Linda , california , and if you're familiar with the concept of the blue zones , this is what this is , and David his name is David Butner who wrote that was the host of this documentary and is highlighting , kind of since that came out and now . So both touching on the previous content but then also introducing some new stuff . So I thought that was really interesting . I thought I hadn't watched it before that because I kept thinking well , you know I've already familiar with the concept , I've spent a lot of time looking into it . I thought it was really interesting , but the documentary was so well done , so well done that I really enjoyed it .

Amjed 4:17

And but the reason I say it was a mistake , because now I can't get this fantasy out of my head of moving to either Greece or Italy , and I mean just the lifestyle . And you know they talked about how people were healthier and they lived longer and they had fewer incidences of disease like cardiovascular disease and dementia . And you know , they're just very active people . They live in these rugged places where you have to walk uphill and downhill , and there's people in their hundreds doing this , you know , hundred plus , going up and down these hills and just growing gardens and doing a lot of physical activity and eating healthy , organic foods , a lot of which they've grown themselves . And I just think , wow , you know , and I know they say the grass is greener on the other side of the fence . But I really started to wonder . It's made me question my life and my choices and where I am and what I'm focused on and what's important to me . And all of that , and in addition to that , I just learned that I'm starting to show early signs of cardiovascular disease .

Amjed 5:40

I found out in a test recently , and so my doctor wants me to put me on a statin , which is a medication that reduces cholesterol in the blood , but it's very hard or impossible to come off of it once you start it , and I've never been a fan of medication and I have no desire to start one . And it took me years to get off the antidepressants and wean off of them and , through a lot of therapy and meditation and just a lot of work , to finally get to a point where I have been free of the antidepressants and now to start on another medication which , to me , is just inserting yet another artificial substance into the body on a regular basis . Yeah , not too excited about that idea . And so I tell my family . I was like , oh , we should just move to Greece or Italy , just go live there .

Amjed 6:44

And he told the story in the documentary about this one guy who was 60-something , diagnosed with colon cancer and decided to go back home , where he was originally from , which is one of these blue zones , so that he could at least pass away in his home country . And then he got there and ended up living to like 102 plus maybe . And it's like a mystery , like what happened ? He went from being in a not blue zone to being in a blue zone and suddenly , whatever , the six months that he had been given to live by a couple of doctors or a few doctors was just reversed somehow . And it wasn't even like a conscious thing on his part . He just went there and was like , okay , I'm gonna buy it out my time until it's over and ended up living a really long time . Now , the one thing he did not touch on in any of that which makes me wonder that personally I just wonder about is the genetic aspect . Like , is there something about people from these regions that genetically supports them living longer , and is that also a factor In addition to lifestyle and diet and activity and community , which are some of the things that he mentioned ? You're just having that purpose , the community , the healthy eating and healthy living .

Amjed 8:20

But and I feel like a lot of those things are missing for me not entirely , but just not in a strong way and it's just that idea of living a really simple life is so tantalizing , it's so fascinating to think , hmm , what would happen , you know , and we were talking about this , my wife and I were talking about what would happen if we just maybe in another 10 , 15 years , we retire , sell a lot of our stuff or give it away and pack a couple of suitcases and just move to a place like that and go try it for a year or two , see what happens , just go there and just see if we're able to acclimate , if it's appealing , interesting to us , like what's going on , and you know , just go check it out and see what happens . And you know , because when I look at my life now and I guess this is a product of living in an urban environment in the US where everything is go , go , go , go , go , go go it just feels like there's no . They're scarcity of time and energy , it's just they're very scarce . And it brings back the idea of from the book the four hour work week which we went through a couple of years ago and I had the same problem . After I went through that , we ended up listening to the audiobook and afterwards I just kept thinking like gosh , this idea of living in kind of spurts and having spreading the retirement out over the healthy years , instead of waiting until you're too old to really enjoy it and maybe work for a couple of years , save up enough to live for a few more years and then go to a place where the cost of living is less and the stress is less and just stay there as long as you can and then go back , earn some more and then go back into it . I'm summarizing the book probably really poorly , but that's what I got out of it . I got out of it this idea that , hmm , is it really like kind of working really hard to get to an end state ? Is that really it ? Or is it the journey Like enriching the journey and saying , okay , maybe if I had fewer responsibilities , fewer obligations , financial obligations , things like that it would allow me to live lower than my current means and not have to stress as much or work as much .

Contemplating Career Change and Personal Reflections

Amjed 11:26

Now , add into that a couple of factors . One is that I am definitely by nature a workaholic and that I give my heart and soul to anything that I do and , in particular , my job , and the fact that I absolutely positively love my job Like absolutely love it . I'm very grateful for it , I feel like it . I'm doing good work that's benefiting a lot of people and so there's definitely benefit in that . So I'm not bemoaning my work . I'm not saying that , oh , I wish I didn't have a job or I wish I didn't have the job that I have . It's just more of like the big picture piece of it Of okay , what's next and how much longer do I go for this ? And I believe I've shared this here before .

Amjed 12:16

But I said , if you're new or if you don't remember the whole , actually one of my original ideas for this podcast that started was based on my retirement plan and I was gonna share about that in a podcast and that's how this whole thing started . I just couldn't think of a name to go with that . And I still have that plan . I mean , I'm still thinking that that might be a good plan because , you know , ever since I can remember , I wanted to study psychology and I've always been really , really interested in psychotherapy and but , for whatever reason , I did not pursue that when I was getting my education and went in a completely different route . But I have never been able to shake that dream of one day being a psychologist . I've never been able to let go of that .

Amjed 13:13

And here I am , 30 years I think , where I saw something about a 35 year high school reunion or something . Yeah , cause I graduated in 91 . So what is that ? A 30 year ? I don't know . I can't do , I'm horrible at simple arithmetic but yeah , that would be like 30 years , right , 32 years or something . Here , hold on , let me just . I'm gonna cheat and those of you who wanna judge me , go ahead , judge me , cause I don't know what I'm talking about .

Amjed 13:51

Yeah , 32 years , I did it , right , okay , arithmetic makes me nervous . That's not my strong suit . Like simple math in my head , like addition , subtraction , multiplication , I don't know , I just my brain doesn't function like that . So , like I said , if you're one of those people who's really good at math and you're judging me right now , knock yourself out , okay . I don't know why . I just did that . That's so that feels . So what is it Adversarial ? It's like I'm assuming negative intent from people and I'm like fighting back at it because I have some kind of shame around the fact that I struggle or I don't trust myself to do math in my head . That's interesting . That might be a thread to pull on in a future episode , like what in the world is going on there ? Like why am I so defensive of that ?

Amjed 14:47

But anyway , getting back to the subject in hand , you know I'm 30 years out from high school and I still have not been able to let go of that dream of becoming a psychologist , and so you know my plan is to actually go back to school and do something that will lead me to psychotherapy , and so the podcast idea originally was to follow that . You know , basically follow that in a podcast and say , okay , here are my choices . I could either do licensed clinical social work . I could pursue a master's in psychology or a PhD or a PsyD in psychology , a doctorate I could do , licensed professional counselor , or you know , there may be other avenues and ways . I have a friend of mine who's trying to convince me to do life coaching , which is a little bit different , but you know , it might be another way to sort of scratch that itch , for lack of a better cliche .

Amjed 15:46

And what I had thought to do in the podcast was to basically share that journey of here are the options , here's I've been studying the different options , here's what I'm learning and I've decided to pursue this option . And therefore let me share my latest adventure with that and where I'm at and then maybe , once I get into a program of some sort , share some of the different things that I'm learning in classes or in practical experiences and just take people on that journey with me as I go through . And that was the original idea for this podcast and it still may be . I mean , I still may share some of that , like , for example , right now I have a mentor of mine who suggested that I just sign up for one class and try it and see if I still have the energy , the brain power , the appetite , whatever you wanna call it to study again , because going back to school is not hard or not easy , especially at the age of 51 . So take one class , try it and see . Is that something I wanna continue doing , and just see where that leads , and so that's . I've been researching a little bit about that and looking at that , but with that I thought , well , if I did do something like that , that might be an interesting career to follow , you know to , basically , if we lived in some rural environment on an island , somewhere off the coast of Greece or Italy or Turkey , to just have a small online practice and help people out . I don't know , it's still a thought . We'll see where that all leads .

Amjed 17:32

But you know , what am I ? What it and I'm sure this is a question a lot of people ask it's like , wait a minute , you know , it's the hamster wheel effect . It's the hamster wheel effect , I think , in that I feel like sometimes I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel . I'm the hamster and I'm running and running and running and running oh boy , that sounds like a black eyed pea song and I'm running and running and running and everybody , everybody , and I'm not going anywhere . Or am I going anywhere and where am I going ?

Amjed 18:12

And so just taking time to stop and ask the question , like is this really the direction that I aspire to go in ? Is this the direction that I aspire to go in ? Thank you , should be headed in . I don't know , should is the right word . But you know , I'm not sure what my , my higher power wants of me . Like , what is God , you know God's direction for me ? Maybe it's like okay , wait a minute . You did this for a while . This is good . How about this now go in this direction ? And I don't know what that looks like . And I don't know what that looks like for me or for my family . And you know , I just look around my life and I definitely have hoarding tendency . That's a potential future episode .

Amjed 19:02

I have that on the list somewhere , and so there's a lot of stuff . I surround myself with stuff . As a matter of fact , every time I think of something , it's like ooh , I wonder if there's something for that . I forgot what I was thinking about today or something , and I thought , oh , I wonder . Oh , I know what it was . It was what is the best outfit to wear when working out ? Like more stuff , right . Like what's more stuff , and you know that was the other thing .

Amjed 19:37

So there's been like two or three things that have just really impacted me in the last couple of years , pretty much post pandemic in a lot of ways , and I don't know if that's a coincidence or if it's related , but the four hour work week was one . The other is the minimalists and this whole minimalism movement . I don't know that I will ever be so hardcore minimalists that I can live out of a suitcase . Maybe I don't know , but as of right now I have trouble seeing that because there's just certain things I really like to have around , but that idea that you know I can be , you know , like be in this environment and maybe not have as much stuff , not work so hard and just simplify my life in some way . Because I was looking at , for example , I was looking at the people living on the an Okinawa . You know , I think three of the areas , three of the blue zones , of the five blue zones mentioned in the documentary , were all islands , small islands , so I thought that was interesting . So if you're living on an island , on a small island , higher chance of living to be 100 .

Reflections on a Simple Community Lifestyle

Amjed 20:52

But in Okinawa , just that simple lifestyle , I mean just this community of friends and family and growing fruits and vegetables and then harvesting them and , you know , spending time together and just this really simple , simple life . And I often feel and maybe this is just too much , and I often feel and maybe this is just maybe , I don't know something's wrong with me or what do they say Like I have an old soul . I often feel like maybe I was born in the wrong generation and the wrong millennium , that you know , I just dream about that kind of a life all the time , all the ever since I was a kid . Really , I mean just this idea of just having a very simple community lifestyle where families are together , communities are together and everybody's supporting each other and it's very tight knit and there's lots of positive energy and activity and healthy living and , like I said , healthy eating , and that I just long for that . I long for that .

Amjed 22:10

There was this one period where I was trying to I guess I'll end with this kind of idea , but I was trying to convince my wife that maybe we should move into a co-op which , if you're not familiar with that concept , is basically where it's a community , it's a purposeful , shared community where there's some common shared resources , maybe some common shared space . So the one idea that I've just been stuck in my head for a few years now is this idea that you could have a planned community where there's maybe 10 houses all together and there's one common house and in the common house there's an industrial kitchen and a common area and , you know , maybe some activities and things . There's shared things like lawn mowers and lawn things or shared tools that are all in this common house and then in the individual houses . There's no need for all of that because you can just borrow it out of the common house . So , you know , if you needed some of those things , you could just go get them from the garage in the common house and and so for .

Amjed 23:26

You know , in the evenings people might head to the common area . Those who are not maybe more members of the family , who are more introverted and need their quiet time , could stay in their own house , and those like me who are more extroverted and need some community time , could head into the common area and help prepare a common dinner for folks , or sign up to prepare dinner one day and say , all right , I'm making dinner on such and such day If anybody wants to come join me . We can make it together . Here's what's gonna be on the menu and we go meet there , and then there's some people playing ping pong on the side or table tennis . There's some people , you know , maybe watching something on TV , but it's like this common place .

Amjed 24:07

Now I would add because I didn't know it existed at the time I wasn't familiar with the concept , but I would add probably a pickleball court somewhere in that whole mix where people can go and play pickleball if they wanted , or other activities , maybe even indoor pickleball court , so you don't have to worry about the weather it could be raining and it could be inside playing pickleball , but that , you know . Just that kind of community that really appeals to me . It's just so exciting the idea of being in that kind of a healthy environment . And I don't know , like I said , I understand that that's not as exciting to everybody , because I have family members who are introverts and they like their quiet time and they wanna be alone and this whole idea of a shared something is just like huh , why would you do that ? Like that makes no sense and for me it makes complete sense and that's why I like this co-op idea where there's individual space and shared space , so that , like I said , for those community members who wanna go and participate in the common areas they could , and those who don't have to .

Amjed 25:17

And anyway , I guess this episode is turning into a . Let me tell you about my dreams . Tell you about the dreams that I have and the fact that I can't subtract 2023 from 1991 in my head but without triple guessing myself . Hi , anyway , I'll stop there . I think that's enough for one discussion , and I don't know what . I didn't really go anywhere with that . I it's just sharing my reflections on that . I don't know if that in any way stimulates any thought for anyone else .

Amjed 25:57

So , if you're listening to this and you're like , hmm , I haven't really paused and thought about my own life lately Like what is it ? Where do I see myself in 30 years if I'm still around ? Like I'm 51 now and that's the question I'm asking . It's like 30 years from now , if I'm still around , where do I see myself ? What does that look like ? And what am I doing to get to that , or to at least work in that direction , or head in that direction , or cause another yawn , or and the funny thing is , I'm drinking decaf tea . I'm a decaf coffee right now , which is not gonna do me any good , cause I don't do caffeine , but and I'm still yawning .

Amjed 26:45

But you know , like what am I doing to get to that 30 year goal from now ? And is there an opportunity to stop and pause and just say , okay , hold on . Maybe I need to take a day off and just sit and reflect and journal research , look at some different things , talk to some people to get some clarity about what the next steps are . So , anyway , yeah , I just share that one . I share it because this is like my public diary . But two , if it does stimulate any thought for you , it's maybe a good opportunity to , even if you're only in your 20s , to say , okay , 50 years from now , where do I see myself ? You know what is gonna be my legacy , what's gonna be my story that I look back upon and say , hmm , yeah , that was my story , rather than just being on the hamster wheel and running and running and feeling like all of a sudden , one day the hamster wheel breaks and it's like , huh , what did I do with my life ?

Amjed 27:59

I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Click with Adam Sandler . It was an interesting movie because it was this whole idea of you know , like this remote control where he could control the world around him . And somehow in the process of using this remote he ends up fast-forwarding himself and sorry for the spoiler , I get such spoiler alert he fast-forwards himself into the future . It doesn't remember any of his life and there's several parts in that movie where it's like the same thing day after day after day after day and I feel like that often I feel like if you look at my week , week to week , 90% of it is exact repeat of the previous week .

Amjed 28:44

Yeah , there's some different excitement's , different things do different whatever , but for the most part , if you just average it all together , it feels like my weeks are just repeats of previous weeks . My Mondays all look similar , my Tuesdays all look similar . I work , then I get off , then I do this , then I do that . If you kind of take a month , my Januarys look generally similar , my Februarys look generally similar . So it's like this kind of repetitive cycle where I'm not sure that yeah , I don't know Again , opportunity for reflection and I don't know what to do with it just yet . But I'm glad that I'm taking time to think about it and to reflect on it and to ask these questions because I feel like they're important questions , even though I don't necessarily have the answers to them right now , but they're at least important questions and make it me thinking and moving in a different direction .

Random message of the episode

Amjed 29:47

With that , let's go to the random message of the day and I will reach into my little bucket over here . So again , if you're new to the podcast , I have a bucket full of fortune cookie messages . I take out all the ones that are predictive in nature , like you're gonna be rich or you're gonna find someone you know . Whatever . I take those out and these are more kind of the cool little sayings that are in fortune cookies , like you know the little grasshopper or something . But you know , now I'm thinking back to my kung fu days . All right , I like to mix it up . All right , here we go . This is interesting .

Amjed 30:34

Never make the mistake of thinking that you know everything about anything . So I like that . That's you know , for it really resonates for me this whole idea that I can . I acknowledge that I don't . There's nothing that I know everything about . First of all , and it's actually , I feel , like most things I know very little about . And it's interesting that they use the word mistake , mistake , because to me it's like , hmm , I tend to shy away from words like that because they invoke shame for me and I'm like , oh , I'm gonna do it Because they invoke shame for me , but this idea that you know , never make the mistake of thinking that you know everything about anything . Maybe it's a mistake , I don't know . I just see it as an unhealthy behavior or an unhealthy attitude . It's a very arrogant attitude for me and I try to avoid it . So , okay , I'll stop there .

Amjed 31:47

Once again , if you are joining , thank you for doing so and , more importantly , I hope that if you that you found some benefit in this year today I had no idea what I was gonna talk about and I just had a , just a thread . I was thinking about that documentary . I didn't know how it would play out . And if you did find some benefit , I hope that you keep coming back and maybe even help spread the word . I have about 10 or 15 people that listen to the podcast now and my dream and my hope is to reach people who really need to hear this . And even if you're like , yeah , I don't know if this is for me , if you know someone that you think it might be helpful to . Please do share it with that . Take care and we'll see you next time .