Transcript

Rick: [00:00:00] And here we go. Yes. Hello. I'm feeling very fidgety this morning with my microphone. I don't know what's going on with me.

Veronica: Well, this is a very different from your usual fidgety ways. I know, but

Rick: I am in a good mood and I want to open up. I want to open up by saying, um, a friend of mine, he won't mind me using his name.

Mario had told me about like his fitness routine about. Not going as long at the gym, but going more consistency. And I know that sounds obvious, but it's hard to do sometimes cause you're in there and you just want to get out of the way problem is at my age, if you go too long, you're out for the count for like three days and you can't go back to the gym.

So I'm reducing the, um, time that I go to the gym to 105 minutes. I mean, Sorry. 65 minutes. I said 105 because we were joking around calling it the Mario 105 workout. One hour and five minutes. Yes. It's a long story. I won't go in why it's one hour and five minutes, but I feel a lot better. So it's putting me in a much [00:01:00] better mood.

Veronica: Oh, good. I'm glad. And yes, you were going a ridiculously long time, but also we can tell the listeners that you're not just going to work out. You like to hang out in there. You like to stretch. You like to breathe. I don't know what else. Thank you. You're doing so I'm excited about this quick in and now sounds really good and I think you'll stick to it.

Rick: Yeah, and the point is, is that I shouldn't sit in there all day because you waste your day. You want to go in, you want to do your hour in five minutes and then be out, right? And then you still have your whole day and it's, uh, I'm feeling good about it. I'm, I'm, I'm not even waiting for the new year. I'm going in right now.

I'm starting now.

Veronica: Yeah, and that's why I like classes so much. I feel very accomplished to take a class and be done with it. Um, I don't know if I mentioned it here before, but I did teach yoga for six years, and I'm actually going to, I saw that Saturday mornings were available in this building, so I'm going to offer up my yoga teaching [00:02:00] services and hopefully get a class going on Saturday mornings.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll, I'll call. You can come. Yeah. I will. I will. You're invited.

Rick: As long as it's an hour and five minutes.

Veronica: Yeah, exactly. So we have been in the holiday spirit very much. I think we're doing well so far. And the, one of my favorite things that we did this year is actually with our membership community, where.

Um, we do these challenges with our community, and we decided to do one where we wrote letters or cards to elder people in elder homes, and we found this great organization and, um. I can't think of the name right now. Sorry. It's it's leaving my my brain, but we'll put it in the And if you're watching this on youtube, yeah, yeah, so I wanted to share and everyone's been sharing That it's been so uplifting for them to have the experience.

One of our members said that she has an elder [00:03:00] home Um care facility right on her blog. So she decided to just go there and drop off a bunch of letters and they were just so Eternally grateful and she she was just saying how she was teary eyed on the way out We have another member who actually decided to write to her own grandparents because she doesn't do that Um necessarily all the time and that was really fulfilling for her So anyway, I wanted to read what I liked about the organization that we use is that they give you these little mini bios of the people in the facilities and then you, you can pick who you want to send a letter to and you learn a little bit about them.

And this one in particular caught my eye because, um, this woman's name is Eleanor and it's written, the bio is written from her granddaughter and it says, my grandma Lulu recently moved into a senior living facility and she had to get rid of all her favorite Christmas decorations. Christmas decorations.

She's done so much for her five Children, her 14 [00:04:00] grandchildren and her five great grandchildren. But no one visits her regularly. That's heartbreaking. I know. And that one really stood out to me because I was, you know, I was reading through them and I mean, you get to the point where you really want to write one for every single person.

It's hard to pick. But this one just really stood out to me because it just said so much, right? Because as child free people, we always hear that you're going to end up old and alone. And we know from people telling us that they live in these. Um, they work in these kind of facilities or they have grandparents that are also alone that it just really I really wanted to make an effort and reach out to this woman because she doesn't get, you know, she feels very alone and I don't know, I just, I felt really good after I wrote the letter and I hope that she gets it on time and I hope that she appreciates it.

And we hope to do more group volunteer things. Um, we are actually definitely gonna do it because people really enjoyed it in the [00:05:00] future. So yeah, that's something that you want to be a part of, by the way, just go to our website and you'll see how to join our membership community because that was a lot of fun.

It

Rick: was so great to see that so many members of our community. Participated. It was so nice. And, um, yeah, it's, it was really sweet. I saw everyone was sharing on our community platform and on the app. And it was really cool to see all that.

Veronica: Yeah, absolutely. So that was a little, um, uh, Santa moment for this week.

And then also, go ahead. Oh, you go

Rick: ahead.

Veronica: And then I also of course want to bring up your recent birthday celebration that we just had. Yes. Yes. Happy 52nd birthday. And, uh, Rick's birthday was, uh, just a few days ago. And we did all sorts of celebrations. We went out with all our friends, uh, who happened to all be child free, which was fun.

And, uh, and by the way, we didn't like set out to have just child for your friends. So it's just the way that it [00:06:00] worked out here in Austin for us, uh, which is just interesting the way that that happens. And then, um, yeah, and then you and I had a nice. It's birthday, the actual day of your birthday. And hopefully you had a good time.

Rick: I did. Thank you, by the way, for putting all that together. It was fun hanging out with all of our friends. And then we had our own day, which was very relaxing. Also, we haven't had a nice relaxing day in a while. So, so that was great. And um, I turned 52, I think we can say that. And I said it. I said it. Oh, you did say that.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm having trouble saying it, I guess, but I will say for anyone, um, that's listening or watching, you know, I'm really, really happy about the fact that I chose to be child free at 52. I mean, you know, cause I think a lot of our audience wonders, like what our younger audience wonders, what is that going to be like when I'm in my mid fifties or my fifties?

You know, am I going to feel the [00:07:00] same way as I feel now? Spoiler alert, you feel better. You feel better than that. You're happier that you made this decision for several reasons. One, you know, I can reflect that working on my mental health and my physical health has done wonders to keep me youthful, to keep me happy, to keep my endorphins going.

And I think that's a huge part of it, right? I mean, carving out the time and not to say that you can't do that if you have a family, but it's much difficult, you know. Yeah, and really an overall stress, I would say, you know, just like, yes, not having that stress on a day to day basis is for me the biggest gift that I gave to myself every birthday.

Veronica: Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I mean, we always talk around how. We have enough stress. Like the idea of taking on more is just so unappealing. And it's not the fact that it's interesting because you know, we do make references to babies and toddlers and little [00:08:00] kids, but this is a lifetime commitment. And I mean, we talked to our friends who now have kids that are older and the stress, the stress is still very much present.

It just. Changes, right? From one situation to another, to another, to another. I mean, I know that mom, my mom still stresses about me, and I know your mom definitely still stresses about you. So it's definitely a lifetime commitment. But yeah, super grateful for that. I did wanna bring up the crazy article that you and I read recently, maybe a few days ago, or last week, I can't remember at this point, but it was about, um.

It was about this woman who shared I think she shared on reddit her story that her husband of a year Revealed to her that he had two kids. I think one was seven and one was ten and They're you know, they're a child free. She's vehemently child free. She had surgery the whole thing. She was very set on it So now he brings up the fact like Oh, [00:09:00] hey, I forgot to mention that I have two kids and not only that, but now I want to fight for 50 percent custody of these kids with my ex.

And on top of that, I want to fight for 50 percent custody and I'm He's a nurse. So he has these crazy work hours, which means that while he's at work and they have custody of their kids, she would have to step up and take care of them. So for anyone, this is like mind blowing news.

Rick: Correct? Yeah, I mean, this article shocked me.

And I got to say, like, let's just unpack that for a second. Okay. First of all, the fact that she was in the dark that he had kids. I mean, that's a Problem right on itself. 100%. And then all of a sudden he introduces these children to her. I don't know how many years they were in the relationship. Did they say?

Veronica: One year. They've been married for one year.

Rick: So I'm going to ask you, I mean, after a year, I mean, I know you're emotionally invested. I get that. But after a year [00:10:00] and I found out if, if it was hypothetically on us, if a year from year into our us dating, if you were like, I have two kids and I didn't tell you about it.

I mean, I'm out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm out. Right. Only because it's a, it's a breach of trust. You essentially lied to me, even though you didn't tell me something that, you know, it's a lie. It's a lie. And it's a breach of trust. So I'm not moving forward. So it's interesting. It seems like she's going to stay with him, but that's a.

No.

Veronica: No. That's not what she's saying at all. No, she's giving him an ultimatum. Mirror the kids because you can't do both. Oh, good for her then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don't know the end result. At least I don't. But, um, from what I read, she was giving him an ultimatum because She also feels the same way that you do.

Like this is a complete lie and I committed to something. I committed to a child free life. And now you have two kids that I didn't know about and you want to bring into our home. So anyway, I thought that was such a good, um, example of how extreme these things can [00:11:00] get, right? Because we talk about dating while child free all the time and what happens there, child free couple, child free life, but.

It just gets so sticky and so complicated when these topics aren't discussed in detail and fully from the beginning and this is just another crazy example of what can happen. Um, so anyway, I hope that it really works out for her, whatever is best and that it sounds like she's going to, you know, she's very strong and determined with her choice and not happy about it and not, not, you know, Speaking her voice very loudly.

Yeah, I just wanted to bring that up for a second, because it just gets so crazy. People just don't understand how complicated this gets and how much um, deceit can be involved when you're getting in a relationship or you are in a relationship with someone. So that's how deep it goes. So I thought it was pretty crazy.

It is crazy. I did also want to mention something that we've also seen in the last week or so [00:12:00] is that, um, this, this Dinks, um, reel went viral and it was a couple talking about being Dinks and Dinks Dumbledore and Gumbno kids. And how great it was and how much they loved it and all the things and then it just blew up online and I'm not surprised at all because every so often this happens where either a celebrity comes into play or a video, um, goes viral and this is what, this is what I think about all the time because people say like, Oh, this doesn't matter anymore.

Like, why are you even talking about it? This is a perfect example of how polarizing this topic still is because of the fact that went viral because everybody had their hands on it. And people were in extreme opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to commenting on child free life. Do you know [00:13:00] what I'm talking about?

Rick: I do. And to set it up, it's, it was a viral trend that was going on where people would say, I'm this. Therefore I do this. I'm this. Therefore I do this. But it was the

Veronica: one video that really took it to the next

Rick: level. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was a dink couple that, um, basically said, we're dinks. We can travel wherever we want.

We're dinks. We have more money than, you know, so on and so forth. So, um, they jumped on that trend. It went viral. First of all, I got to back up and say, I didn't realize. That dinks weren't necessarily child free, but it's like I always just assumed. Oh, I'm I'm a dink. I'm child free, but it's actually you can be just a dink for a certain period of your time,

Veronica: which usually happens.

Like, I remember, for example, with my ex husband when we got married and we were doing all like financial transactions, mortgage, whatever, and they kept Bringing up like, well, you're dinks, you're dinks, you're dinks. Oh,

Rick: really? I didn't know that. That

Veronica: came up? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would come up. Or like, as [00:14:00] dinks, you know.

So, at the time, people didn't know if we were having kids or not, but still terming us. That way, um, or giving us that name. So, yeah, it's the period.

Rick: I didn't know it was that mainstream, actually. Yeah, it's a

Veronica: period of whether you have kids or not, where there's two people, double income, no kids. You could have kids after.

And the interesting part is that, in this particular reel that went viral, they do very specifically mention, we don't have kids yet. Which I found very interesting because this went on into this whole child free thing. And meanwhile, they were very clear that they were just dinks at the moment. So there was so much reaction to this.

I mean, everybody stepped in. Um, I know that you watched the video because I could hear you just getting angry from the other side of the room. You watched the video for some, from some women who had a reaction to this. on YouTube, very faith [00:15:00] based channel. And, um, and she was saying what?

Rick: Basically, she addressed that viral video, but then she went off to really talk about the child free movement as a whole.

And she talked, she started by saying that Dink's Are being a dink is a good thing, you know, and I was like, Oh, this is interesting. And being that there's a season in your life where you can be a dink and how grateful you should be and how happy it is and how freeing it is. And you could do whatever you want.

And, but then she talks about how that's only just a season before you have the children and how the real purpose of life is to have kids. She also talked about how being child free is anti human. And she went on to say that, you know, what ultimately fulfills you is having kids and that child free people are nothing but consumers.

It plays off the whole selfish thing. And, you know, it's just one of those things where it's just like, we hear this all the time, but an argument can be made that, you know, having a lot of kids [00:16:00] is being selfish in a lot of ways, you know? Of

Veronica: course, absolutely. And it's not even, yeah, it's. It's, it's, it's really interesting every, cause we hear this so much, right, about like just focusing on ourselves.

And I do believe that I heard a little tidbit where she said, um, something to the fact of, uh, that's not really a, a way to be like a good person. The only way to like really live life is to put all your energy and effort on someone else. And that's like the true meaning of. Love and everything else on the Sun, right?

And it's so funny that she was, is so anti focusing on yourself. She said that we've created the society of me, me, me, me, me. And then I think about, we were watching some show last night and And I made a comment cause the, the, the father in the show was just so cruel to his son. And I just remember, I don't know if you remember, but like, I, I just, I was thinking to [00:17:00] myself and I paused it.

I'm like, God, like parents can just be so awful, so awful to their children. There's so many different ways to be awful. And I keep, and whenever I see that, I think about these comments of like, you need to give yourself your life up for your kids. You need to do everything for them. But between what we experienced personally, what we see amongst our circle of friends, our coworkers, what we see in media, there's just not tons of examples of this kind of love that we see that's, that's unconditional, that you're always doing the right thing that, so I'm just surprised that people would rather any.

Body have children, anybody who's not prepared, especially anybody who's not mentally prepared to have them to just have them. And that makes them a better person where they can be completely cruel and abusive.

Rick: Yeah, it's, it's absolutely ridiculous. I do remember that part of the show and it, and he [00:18:00] was actually cruel to all of his sons.

He had several sons. And

Veronica: also, last thing I'll mention about this is Elon Musk had to chime in, and of course that went viral too, and I actually took notes on his quote, he said, there is an awful morality to those who deliberately have no kits, they are effectively demanding that others Other people's kids take care of them in their old age.

That's messed up. I don't know what that meant. I don't know. I don't care what that meant But it's just he loves to chime in there anytime that this topic comes up and he has three Wives or ex wives with 10 children So again, it's just really interesting when people chime in on this and they have their own stuff going on.

So Whatever that, whatever that meant.

Rick: Yeah, I'm chalking that one up to, I mean, these are the business of making things and selling things. [00:19:00] So he wants as many people on the planet to buy them. And that's, that's what my sum up of Elon Musk is when he says, uh, be fruitful and multiply.

Veronica: Yeah, no, absolutely.

And the other thing that I want to say about that is that it just makes me nuts because when people talk about, you know, the population coming to an end, for some reason we get the, we get. The arrow pointed at us as child free people as if we are solely responsible for birth rates declining when that's absolutely not true.

I mean, there's so much. There's so many other factors to that. Um, I mean, women, you know, having more of a choice when it comes to their career versus staying home. People, just the economy sucks and people don't, people can barely pay off their student loans, you know, and they don't want to go necessarily into debt.

Some people want to have kids, but they just don't have the resources and the support to do so. I mean, um, there's just so, there's infertility issues on [00:20:00] the rise. I mean, I don't know about you, but I have so many friends. that had to go through treatments, through IVF and everything else on the sun. And also, people who are having children are not necessarily having seven, but having two or one.

So the factors are endless when it comes to why the birth rates are going down, but we always get the, we always get the blame. I don't know why.

Rick: It's the state of the world, right? I mean, it seems. So violent, it seems so chaotic, the future seems unknown. I mean, we've got aliens that are on the way. We've got nuclear war that could break out at any minute.

Yeah. Do you think that that plays into the mental? Thought process when it comes to whether or not I'm going to have, I mean, I mean, think

Veronica: about it. I mean, tell us we've gotten tons of those DM's people tell us, like, I can't even imagine with everything that's going on, the uncertainty, especially coming fresh out of a [00:21:00] pandemic that nobody thought was going was Yeah.

Feasible. Um, yeah. Hell. Yeah. I mean people tell us outright like I how can I bring someone into this world? And the interesting thing is that the argument to that is like, oh, well the past generations felt the same There's always something going on But yeah, sure. There's always something going on, but it doesn't mean that it can't validate the current feelings of what a Mess things are.

And who cares what happened in the past? Like, this is how I feel right now. Like, things are looking this way to me. I'm very concerned. I don't want to bring someone into this world, into this chaos and this mess. So, it's completely validating to have those

Rick: feelings. Yeah, I think it's everything in the world.

I think it has to do with technology too. And in the sense that it's just that. We're so much more aware of, of what's happening around us, you know what I mean? And, and when we, when we get this information, like back in the day, right? Life was simpler in the sense [00:22:00] that there wasn't a lot of technology, but it also just, you just, your life was right in front of you.

And it just made it very easy to say, you know what? Okay. I have a wife, I'm going to make children, and I'm going to live this traditional lifestyle. But now, like, we're so much more self aware of not only everything that's happening in the world, but just information in general.

Veronica: So yeah, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the Dink controversy.

Comment below, reach out to us on social or wherever you can. Um, I wanted to bring up, we went to a holiday party and had an interesting conversation. I wanted to bring that up. But before I do, I just wanted to say two things. Number one is that my, um, Program is child free for me. I do different groups is opening up in january.

It starts on january 17th And you've want if you want to learn about that go to is child free for me. com and we can set up a call between uh you and I and number two is that as of 2024 we are opening the doors to guests on this podcast [00:23:00] and we're really excited about that We're going to continue chatting just the two of us because we love it and uh Yeah, we're definitely going to keep that going.

That's going to be the meat of the podcast, but every now and then we're going to introduce some guests. So we're going to put up a form, um, in the description, if anybody is interested in what we're looking for is experts in all. The fields in all the topics that are important to us, right? So maybe it's, uh, everything.

So is it health, wellness, real estate, um, finances, mental health, maybe, uh, cooking, whatever, everything under the sun that is important to us. We're going to discuss, but just under the child care umbrella, because life is. different when you're child free. So I'm super excited about that. So make sure that if you or someone, you know, would be perfect as a guest, the form is in the description.

And also if you're thinking about being child free, but there's still, there's still, [00:24:00] um, some fear and anxiety that's holding you back. Take a look at it. It's child free for me. com.

Rick: I'm excited for your January class. It's going to be good. You have several people that have already signed up and

Veronica: I'm really excited.

Okay, so I want to talk to you about we've been to some holiday parties and we went to our building holiday party, which I stayed at a little too late.

Rick: Someone came home a little drunky. I got to throw in there.

Veronica: Yeah, it was really, really fun. But during the,

Rick: um, And by the way, I didn't mean that very judgmental.

That sounded very judgmental. No, no, no, no. I actually thought it was really cute. I mean, you came stumbling in and I thought it was, uh, I

Veronica: know. It's rare that I get drunky. So when I do, it's. It's kind of funny.

Rick: I know when you do have a lot of, a few drinks, I shouldn't say a lot, a few, a few, because it doesn't take much for you.

It doesn't take much for me. For those who don't know, Veronica is 4'11 so she's a tiny consumer when it comes to alcohol. Um,

Veronica: go ahead. Yes, so that was some [00:25:00] fun times for me. And we met this woman.

Rick: I went. I, I did go. I wasn't, I wasn't feeling great. I left early, but I have to say when we went down there, there was like a buffet of food and Veronica's like hold my drink and I'm standing in the, in the corner waiting and there's like 40, 50 people there.

She's getting her food. She looks up to me and I. I kind of glance over and see her just dying laughing at me and I'm just like what the hell and then she comes over I'm like why are you laughing and she's like because you look like a serial killer like you look like you wanted to murder everyone there and I'm like this is my default face to just kind of like look around and observe and you're like well you look crazy and I'm like okay.

I gotta think about that. So, I mean, you have a good default face. No, I didn't

Veronica: say, I didn't say you looked crazy. I said you looked miserable. But that was just

Rick: your No, you said I wanted to, I looked like a serial killer.

Veronica: No, I did say that. I for sure said that because you did. And that's why we laughed. I looked up because you're just Yeah.

You know, staring around at people, but, um, no, I know, I know, I [00:26:00] know, I know, I get it. I was really making fun of you. Um, so we started talking to this woman in our building who is, we find out is an author. She's here in Austin on a fellowship. She's writing a novel and the character in her novel is. Um, going through a lot of decision making, I think she's in her early thirties and there's just a lot of things going on in her life.

But one of the things that she's contemplating is whether or not to have kids. So it was interesting that we started talking to her and diving deeper into it, which isn't odd at all, because I think this is the way that a lot of artists express themselves. She is very much. She's also in her early thirties and also not sure where she stands with her decisions to have kids.

And she was really excited to meet us. And she was telling us that her main fear is that she's going to be bored when she's older, if she doesn't [00:27:00] have kids. And I don't know about you, but I have gotten this question so much, especially we talk about it in my program. It's child free for me, but I've just had this conversation with random people because as soon as I tell people what I do, they start, you know, spilling the beans and telling, telling me what their journey and the story is.

So I have heard this a lot and I always think it's really interesting, right? Because it really makes you think about how people view boredom, what boredom is, why people are so afraid of it. So before I get into my thoughts and my comments, how. Do you, have you gotten that question before, or is that, is that a fear that you had yourself?

Rick: I might have gotten the question, I don't remember, but I certainly asked myself that question a lot when I was, you know, when I decided not to have kids, like, am I going to be bored? And, you know, the quick answer at 52, as I'll tell you right now, is the opposite. You're not bored. You know, if you, you, you end up filling time, no matter what your life [00:28:00] choices are, you're going to, you know, you're busy, you're busy.

And, um, so I will say that. You know, it is an interesting question to ask yourself. I think that like anything, if you choose to be bored, you can be bored, which is nice. You can be relaxing, but I am not comfortable being bored. So the minute I have a feeling of like, Oh, I'm kind of bored. I just go out and do something.

And that's, what's great about being child free because you can be spontaneous. You can go do whatever you want at any moment. You know, outside of your regular work career duties or whatever you have to do, but like, I, I don't, did, did I answer the question? I don't know. What, what did you ask me?

Veronica: Oh, it wasn't a question.

It was just like what your thoughts were. But here's the thing that I see quite a bit, is that I wanna get a little deeper into like what boredom is before I get to, because you're like, I'm not bored, but you might not be bored, but other people might be bored, [00:29:00] right? So it's about. Feeling uncomfortable doing nothing.

Rick: Ooh, yeah, I struggle with that sometimes. But I don't consider being bored. What do you mean? When I don't do something, I'm not necessarily

Veronica: bored. Correct. Correct. Bored.

Rick: is, is a state of mind that you don't have some, in this particular case, that you don't have something in your life, therefore you're bored.

You don't have purpose. There's a big difference between being bored and feeling like you don't have purpose, in my opinion. Oh, I

don't

Veronica: connect boredom with purpose at all. You're connecting it with purpose.

Rick: Well, I mean, yeah, if, if you feel like for me, I'm speaking for me. If I don't have purpose in my life, oh, I don't You feel however you want, I'm just asking.

Yeah. Yeah. If I don't have purpose in my life, I get bored with, with, with, you know, and I mean purpose not necessarily career wise or, you know, but just purpose [00:30:00]

Veronica: is a big word because if you don't feel like you have, well, I'm not judging you. I'm just saying that's interesting because that's an interesting link right now, by the way.

Well, I'm not judging you at all. I just never heard you say that. And it sounds weird because. I mean, that's yet another example, right? Like if you're connecting boredom with purpose, that is, that means if I'm bored, I don't have purpose, which is the reason to avoid boredom at all costs, because then that means you're purposeful as long as you're doing something.

So you feel like as long as you're doing something, you have purpose? Yes. Is that what you meant?

Rick: Yeah, I think so. You know, striving towards a goal, whether that's what we're doing with the child free connection, whether that's connecting with my friends in a certain, you know, being social and connecting with my friends, whether that's, um, taking on a hobby, whatever it happens to be.

Veronica: Well, what if it's just a Sunday [00:31:00] and you have no plans, nothing to do? I'm not around. Eddie's not around. There's no football on or anything to keep you entertained. And do you feel bored?

Rick: If I start to get that feeling, I fill that time with something. So I'll go to the gym. I'll go for a walk. I'll go get something to eat.

I will feel it because I think this is what I'm saying is like being bored has nothing to do with having children. And I think, you know, if, so when people say I'm, I'm afraid of being bored, I don't think that's related to children at all. And I think you would agree with that. I think it's a state of mind of, you know, If I'm feeling this sense of boredom that makes me uncomfortable, I'm going to figure out a way to reverse that feeling.

Veronica: Right, and I think that's just what I'm trying to break down, like people's idea of boredom, right? Like, okay, an example would be like, Today when people have a teenager right and the teenagers like I'm so bored because I've seen it Said with my [00:32:00] nieces and my nephews my friends kids, but they have every device under the Sun They have every game under the Sun They have pretty much anything accessible to them that they can have but they're bored right, so

Rick: Well, can I say something?

I also think a lot of people like to throw that word out easily because we're so overstimulated that it's very easy to just say, I'm bored. And it doesn't mean you're really bored. It just means that you don't have 95 million pieces of data coming into your eyeballs right now, because you're not in front of your screen, or you're not watching TV, or you're not doing something that's electrifying, like going out To amusement park or something that's stimulating you, you know what I mean?

So therefore I'm bored. It's just like, no, you're resting is the way I look at it.

Veronica: Like, that's why, that's exactly why I'm bringing it up. Because this word gets, gets weaponized against being child free. And, and I'm, I'm just trying to [00:33:00] still dig into like, what is this fear of boredom? Because it really comes down to what boredom means to each of us.

Right? Because like I said, a kid who has everything under the sun can feel bored, right? So what makes people feel bored and like, is it just uncomfortable? Like I mentioned earlier, to just be alone with yourself, right? Because some people really thrive in that, just to have quiet, just to be sitting there either breathing or meditating or just being, is that just so crazy to someone that that would be horrible, right?

Right? Like. And then I think about like, okay, what does boredom mean to you? And that's not that's like an open ended question. I just want people to think about what boredom is and then like how to fill that boredom is interesting to me because The idea to think if I have kids I will not be bored Okay, but [00:34:00] are those things filling your time what you actually want to fill your time with, right?

Because, okay, let's put it in scenario. You're not bored because now you're getting up extra early to make, um, you know, lunches or to drive, drop off kids to school. And then you have, let's say, it's holidays, right? I just talked to my friend. She's still like, okay, I have to wait till the kids go to sleep, like wrap all the presents and then I have to get more presents and then I have to do, you know, all the snacks and all the cookies and the friends over and she's buying, she's buying presents for all the teachers, the crossing guard, the dance instructor, the baseball coach.

So yeah, that's She's not bored. She's exhausted. So it's a matter of looking deeply into it and say, like, well, I'm scared to be bored. It's like, okay, I understand that, but think about how does the alternative, considering we're talking about children specifically, So if you're scared of being bored, does that [00:35:00] day or that lifestyle feel better to you because you're not bored?

Do you know what I'm getting at? It's about dissecting the boredom.

Rick: Yeah, no, I completely understand. And I think a lot of it also is just when you're in this position like this young lady was that you were speaking to, um, you know, you, Are you have a lot of fears of the unknown, they start to stack up and one of them is being bored, right?

And there's other ones that she probably has that she didn't share with us. Um, well, she said that was her main one, her main fear. Yeah. It was, it was being bored. And I think it's just natural. You know, you, you, you start to worry about. What if, you know, when I buy a house, what if this happens? Well, what if I don't like it?

What if I live there and I'm miserable? If I have kids, what if I'm bored? I mean, we just do those. We're programmed as human beings to ask these what if questions when we make decisions, some people, I mean. You, you seem to be a little bit more confident when you make your decisions because you're very calculated and you think about them.

Veronica: Well, [00:36:00] no, I'm not, I'm not asking to even answer the question. I just want the listeners or if you're watching on YouTube to just, if you do have that feeling just to examine it, I'm just asking people to examine it. What does that mean to me? What is the alternative? What makes me uncomfortable about being bored?

Is it bringing up? Memories, like for example, I was really bored as a kid. I didn't have access to any real simulations besides a TV set. I didn't have any friends to play with. I wasn't able to go outside. Like, there was just a lot of boredom. My childhood was just filled with boredom. So, I think People just have to see like what does that mean to me?

Or is it like I've been so over stimulated my whole life that the idea of quieting things down Is that just super scary, right? Is it super scary to think that you have the freedom to just go at a really slow pace and Enjoy your morning and spend an hour or two on coffee and [00:37:00] reading and you know Is that just does that just feel too?

Boring for you because you're used to going, going, going, going, going. Um, and we can relate a little bit like having moved from New York city where we're overstimulated 24 seven and you slow things down, you know, now that we're in Austin, I think that I even had. Fears of like or thought not really fears, but just thoughts of what if we're bored?

What if there's not enough to do? whereas In actuality, like I we were just for you and me like we needed this slow down We needed this quiet and now we appreciate The fact that there's not stimuli 7. So anyway I just wanted to bring that up because people ask us all the time. She brought it up at the party and it's just something that Each person, I talk about this in my program is child free for me, like, it's really important to dissect these things, especially like every single fear that [00:38:00] anyone may be having about being child free.

Rick: Yeah. Have you ever, um, worried about being bored when you were making the decision to have kids? Not have kids, I should say.

Veronica: Boredom, I don't think was a factor for me. Yeah. Um, I think though, because I was programmed to believe that I was going to end up alone, um, and that, and that parents with kids always had this like, you know, romanticized, um, day where like the whole family's around, all the kids are around all the time and everybody's happy.

Capshot moment. So I think that I, yeah, so I think I fell into more of that. Because I was like, oh, everyone's gonna have that and I'm not so I think it was more of like loneliness And which is like what I have to dissect and how I'm able to teach people now But I don't know. I don't think boredom was one of them because like I said, I was a bored kid So I wasn't overstimulated and it didn't sound [00:39:00] the alternative like I just explained of Doing all the things all day long until like, you don't get a break for yourself.

That wasn't appealing to me at all. So I think that negated any, any fear of boredom.

Rick: Yeah. I mean, in my opinion, I do believe again, bringing it back to technology. There's just so much to do and so much stimuli and so many ways that, you know, I just don't, I think boredom becomes less and less of a, of an issue when it comes to anything.

You know, not just not having kids,

Veronica: possibly. And I think it, it, it more, you're right. Possibly. And I think it also like weighs so much. Like for me, that idea is just like a sense of power for me, because I like knowing that I can control things in my life. Right. So example, like you started the conversation off.

Like if I'm bored, I can do X. So my choices of on board either it's like I can embrace. The quiet embrace the [00:40:00] fact that there's nothing going on in my life embrace the fact that, you know, maybe I haven't been invited to anything that day or whatever. That's one option. Or the other option is to actually create stimuli for myself by doing something.

Um, so it feels very like powerful to me to know that I have those options.

Rick: Yeah. And I will say too, and I know this for a fact that I know a lot of parents that are bored.

Veronica: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because there's a, there's a boredom in redundancy. That's exactly what I was about to say. So that's another, yeah, so that's another whole, yeah, there's a whole other angle with that.

Redundancy can get really boring for anyone, whether you're a parent or not, but, um. This particular

Rick: person was telling me, they were like, Oh, every day is the same. It's I wake up, I feed the kids, I take them to school, but it's so boring. Like they're just over it, you know, the monotony of it. And then they save up and they go on a vacation once a year with the kids, which is like redundant as well.

So, yeah.

Veronica: [00:41:00] So, um, so yeah, that was an interesting conversation we had. And also we've been just doing our holiday thing. Like we mentioned, we, um, have gone to a few parties. We, um, have gone to some holiday decorated places. We are moving forward with. We actually changed the gift. Thanks. We were going to do, we were going to.

Give each other gifts and then we set a limit on the amount and then we decided because we were like, oh, should it be more? Should it be more and then we decided Again that we we both would actually rather um have an experience over gifts So we are gonna um, which I think we mentioned last time we are going to do a little getaway So we're going to book that probably today And uh, yeah, it's been fun.

Just celebrating the season with you. We're not doing any traveling this season here and we're just going to spend most of our time together, sometimes with friends and I'm really loving it. We just saw a bunch of people in our elevator today with [00:42:00] suitcases rushing to the airport. And, you know, although we love to do that as well, it's been nice to just be able to chill.

Some people may find it boring, but, but this is a perfect example of like. We're fully embracing the fact that it's just the two of us and Eddie for the holidays. It's

Rick: not boring at all It is amazing to have this building so quiet and peaceful Yeah,

Veronica: we're really looking forward to next week because the city's gonna feel quiet and and yeah, we're really excited about that too Yeah, so I think um This is our final episode of 2023, correct?

Right. Yeah. Because the New Year's just right around the corner and I just want to take a second to really thank our listeners and the people that are watching on YouTube. This has been such an interesting couple of months. We just started this podcast and we're getting so much love and we really appreciate it and it's really motivating us to move forward.

[00:43:00] So I'm looking forward to 2024.

Rick: Yeah, I mean, dialogue even personally helps me. I love having these conversations and we hope that it helps you as well. And we are looking forward to, um, coming bigger and better in 2024.

Veronica: Yeah, lots more ahead. Lots more ahead. We have some, some, some good plans for all of y'all.

So happy holidays, everyone. Happy New Year. And we'll see you very, very soon. See

Rick: you next time.