So What? Now What?

All right. Hello, Quadrisphere. All right. So the title of this live stream is So What, Now What? And what inspired it really was something that happened to me yesterday. I live in Culver City, California. It's about an hour from Malibu. And I was supposed to have a business networking luncheon or whatever. And there are fires happening in Malibu, if you haven't heard. And as I was like an hour away from leaving, my wife was like, hey, you know, there's fires in Malibu. And I was like, yep. But I haven't gotten an e-mail saying that it was canceled And I figured I would, right?

So I get in my car and I drive and I'm having nice conversations with people driving and the road's getting, more and more desolate, like there's nobody on the road. And I keep driving and I'm driving and then I get to the address to where this place is supposed to be. There is nothing, Nobody. So I call the woman in charge and I'm like, hey. And I didn't even need to say anything. She's like, oh my God. She's like, I don't think I contacted you, but you probably can tell that the event is canceled.

And I said, yeah, I kind of figured And she's like, my God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I thought I contacted you, or at least I contacted everybody who had RSVP. And I said, well, I thought I had RSVP. And then I was like, I had this feeling when my wife told me about the fires that I should check. I should call just to double check. Even if I didn't have an e-mail saying it was canceled, maybe I should just check, but I didn't. But here's where so what, now what comes in. So I've driven an hour out of my day.

There is no event. And to add to it, and I mean, look, these are still first world problems, 100%. But it was 96 yesterday and I have no, the air conditioning's broken in our car that I had. Brand new car, by the way. Not going to tell you who. We don't need to put that out there. But I will say this. In another time, I would have been pissed. And I probably would have still been friendly to the woman, but I would have been pissed. And I would have made-up stories about why I wasn't called, why I was left out.

And just to tack on to the old kind of narratives that I have, the old negative narratives that I have in my head. And you know what? I didn't. It was much more, it was much more, my dog is barking in the background. So what? Now what? In the sense of like, I literally, I was talking to Sponsor as I was leaving the property, which was a very big property in Malibu. And I was like, hey, you know what? I guess I got a nice drive home. And I also had the benefit of a nice drive here. And that's the shift, right?

So it's like, okay, I could say, hey, she was supposed to contact me. I could say, I'm an idiot for not contacting her. I could say any number of things. So what? Now what? You're in Malibu. Would you like to go home? Or would you like to be and do something else? And that to me is like so much of life, right? I mean, it's not to minimize the pain that we experience, but when we get to a certain point of our lives, when we get to a certain maturity, emotional maturity, a certain degree of development, it's got to be something to where we can look more objectively at the things that happen.

and say, okay, so what? I got a flat tire on my way to work. So what? My spouse, my partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, broke up with me. Okay. I watched my daughter just navigates something and in many ways she did, so what, now what? Because she found out that this boy that she's been talking to, because that's what kids do now, they first have this stage of talking and then they date, which is actually kind of cool. And so she was talking to him and then they were gonna go to homecoming tonight.

And then something happened and she hasn't told us exactly what happened, but she told us that something happened and it was really upsetting to her and a lot of other people. And she did talk to us about that and about what she was going to do and how she was gonna respond to him. But most of it was like, all right, well, that's what he did. I've talked to him about it. So now what? Am I going to feel sorry for myself and not go to homecoming even though we're not going together? Am I going to bad mouth him and treat him as a horrible guy despite the mistake he has made?

So what? Now what? How do I want to respond in life when things happen? How do I want, what do I want to do? Do I want to react? Do I want to pause and then respond? What is it? Do I want to feed the negativity and give back negativity or do I want to neutralize the negativity by giving back kindness and compassion or at least calmness? So what? Now what? Now what is the biggest question? How do I respond here? What am I going to do? What is the highest integrity for me to act, to not necessarily do in kind what I've just experienced or to not have to punish somebody because I think that's the case or to even just emotionally vomit on them because I'm upset and something has happened to me.

No. Mature, emotionally grounded people. We pause. We get to say, oh, that's a bummer. That's a bummer. I just drove out here. And you know what else I did? I treated myself to like the worst food, frankly, I could have. McDonald's. Double cheeseburger or two cheeseburgers, a Fanta, orange Fanta, and fries for my drive back. And it was great. Knowing that I don't eat that kind of food for the most part, but why not? Why not just indulge a little. And that's it, man. That's, I think, So this weekend, when you're in a situation, you find yourself in a situation, before you respond, before you react, ask yourself, now what?

Now what? what do I really want to do in this situation? So there you go. My little tidbit for this Saturday, October 17th. Take care.