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Why We Do What We Do: Karma, Gloria Steinem & the Power of Patterns
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Why do we do the things we do? In this episode of "Unsolicited Perspectives," Bruce Anthony takes you on a journey through the patterns of history and the depths of personal emotion. Explore the connections between civil rights, women’s liberation, and LGBTQ+ advocacy, and discover how laughter, tears, and deep thought can lead to powerful self-awareness and social change. Bruce shares personal stories, unpacks generational struggles, and reveals why history keeps repeating itself—offering a fresh perspective on progress, pushback, and the ongoing fight for equality. Whether you’re passionate about social commentary, personal development, or understanding the world through a new lens, this episode is packed with insights, empathy, and the tools you need to navigate today’s complex society. #PersonalGrowth #SocialJustice #AuthenticityMatters #gloriasteinem #karma #civilrightshistory #emotionalintelligence #unsolicitedperspectives
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Chapters:
00:00 Why Do We Do What We Do? Kickoff & Big Questions 🎙️🤔
00:20 Welcome to Unsolicited Perspectives 🎙️🔥💥
01:07 Inside My Mind: Laughter, Tears & Living Fully Every Day 🧠😂😭
04:10 Seeing Life In Patterns :Looking at Life's Twists & Turns 🔄🔮
08:45 History on Repeat: Civil Rights, Progress & Pushback 🕰️✊
20:39 Don't Blend In: The Magic of Non-Conformity & Standing Out 🚀🌈
25:29 Revolution in Heels: The Women's Liberation Movement Unleashed 👠🔥
33:58 Gloria Steinem: The Fearless Trailblazer Who Changed Everything 👑✊
35:40 Legacy in Action: How Gloria Steinem Broke the Mold 🌟📢
36:52 My Dream Woman: Why Gloria Steinem Inspires Me ❤️🙌
41:54 Toxic Beginnings: The Relationship Story You've Been Waiting For 💔🚩
45:05 When Love Turns Sour: The Downfall of a Toxic Relationship 🕳️😱
48:42 Stuck in the Gray: Surviving a Situationship Saga 😬🔄
55:03 Karma's Lesson: Growth, Pain & Moving Forward 🌱🌀
01:00:37 That's a Wrap! Final Thoughts, Thanks & What's Next 🎬🙏
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Transcript
Introduction to Unsolicited Perspectives
00:00:00
Speaker
Why do we do the things that we do? Are we leaders, followers, or both? We're going to get into it Let's get it!
00:00:19
Speaker
Welcome. First of all, welcome. This is Unsolicited Perspectives. I'm your host, Bruce Anthony, here to lead the conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today's society. Join the conversation and follow us wherever you get your audio podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for our video podcasts and YouTube exclusive content.
00:00:37
Speaker
Rate, review, like, comment, share. Share with your friends, share with your family, hell, even share with your enemies. On today's episode, I'm going to be dilly-dadding a little bit.
00:00:49
Speaker
Then I'm going to be talking about pioneers and the women's liberation movement. And then I'm going to be telling a personal story about karma and God. But that's enough of the intro. Let's get to the show.
Living Fully: Jim Valvano's Philosophy
00:01:07
Speaker
This first segment, follow me. You're going to think that I'm rambling. but I'm gonna bring it all to a point. I'm gonna cover a wide variety of different topics, start different discussions in this first segment, but it's all leading to a point. So just flow with me here as I give you guys insight into how my mind works. I mean, if you watch the show, you listen to the show,
00:01:36
Speaker
You know a little bit about how I think, but I'm about to give you guys true insight into how my mind works and how things fire off in my brain and how I just think about stuff. And I often steal the words from Jim Valvano, who was a legendary coach for NC State basketball. He won a national championship in 1983, and he passed away from cancer. And yeah ESPN always does the Jimmy V Foundation.
00:02:03
Speaker
Jimmy Palverno, because he gave this great speech where he won this award. And he said, they he said this thing that really, really stuck with me. And and I carry it on all of my life.
00:02:14
Speaker
And he said, if you laugh, cry, and sit in thought
The Importance of Emotions and Laughter
00:02:21
Speaker
in one day, that's a full day because it's a wide range of emotions and you've lived a full, full day. So I try to live that every single day. Now I sit and thought whether I want to or not, just because my mind is constantly racing.
00:02:38
Speaker
I sit and thought every day. I laugh every single day. It's a part of my personality. I'm never going to lose my humor. I can find just about, I can find something funny and just about almost anything. There's some stuff you just, there's no funny in that.
00:02:54
Speaker
Now, the cry thing, I don't cry every day, but I cry more than most people, most men. I'll say most men. There are some men, I know Matt Barnes said on his podcast, All the Smoke, that you know he hasn't cried for 20-something years. And I was like, wow.
00:03:10
Speaker
don't know what that's like. I cry almost every Sunday. And why do I cry on every Sunday? Things move me to tears and tears of happiness and tears of joy. I'm just an emotional person. i come I get it honestly because all the men in my family are super emotional.
00:03:25
Speaker
I've seen my grandfathers cry. I've seen my father cry. I've seen my uncles cry. I've seen one of the toughest men that I've ever met in my entire life, my big cousin, who's like my big brother, cry. And he's tough.
00:03:37
Speaker
He's tough, tough, right? He's street tough. So there's never been some lack of masculinity for crying. I've cried over losses of basketball games. I've cried over, you know, emotional moments that, you know, that are happy moments. I cry and I'm touched often by stuff that I see on TV. Look, let me watch. a Let me sit up there and watch a Law & Order SVU. I'm going to be touched emotionally. So Sit and thought, laugh, cry every day.
00:04:10
Speaker
Why am I bringing
Seeing Patterns: A Visual Learner's Insight
00:04:11
Speaker
this up? Okay, I told you guys I was going to give you insight in my mind. You know how some people are audio learners or visual learners? I'm definitely a visual learner.
00:04:21
Speaker
um That's just who I am. You can explain something to me and I'll i'll get it. you know I can read something and I'll get it. But if you show it to me, I have it.
00:04:31
Speaker
And my mind works in patterns. I figured this out very early. One of my teachers told me this. She was like, your mind works in patterns. And it had to be eighth or ninth grade where you would show me sequences and I would immediately be able to figure out what the answer is, no matter what the subject was, whether it was, you know, English, right? Figuring out subject and predicate, the nouns and the verbs, there's all patterns. Math, math is nothing but patterns.
00:05:00
Speaker
One of the reasons why I love history this because history is a succession of patterns. My ex-wife, I told you I was gonna go all over the place. Don't worry, I'm gonna bring it to a point at the end of the segment. Just follow with me. My ex-wife used to love it and hate it when she would have asked me for advice.
00:05:20
Speaker
It got to the point where she stopped asking me for advice because i was always right. and and And this isn't to say that I'm smarter than everybody. I'm not.
00:05:31
Speaker
I've said it over and over again. I do believe that I have above average talent intelligence, but I like to keep people who are smarter than me around me so I can always learn and grow. I just have a different way of looking at certain situations and it's all patterns. So she would have trouble at work and she would tell me the story and I would just listen because I knew sometimes she just needed to vent.
00:05:56
Speaker
And I didn't always have to give my opinion. I didn't always have to be right. oh So i I didn't have to give my opinion. I would just listen. But she could tell because she knew me. She could tell I had something to say that I wasn't saying it out of respect for the fact that I knew that she just wanted somebody to listen to her.
00:06:15
Speaker
And she would say, go ahead. I know you have something And like, no, no, no, i'm I'm just listening to you. She was like, I know you know what the best course of action is. I could see it in your face. You're always right. Just tell me what's going to happen." And I said, okay, these are going to be the sequence of events of what's going to happen if these things happen.
00:06:33
Speaker
If this happens, this is going to end up like this. If this happens, it's going to end up like this. And I was always right. And she was like, how do you see, how do you know that? And I was like, well, one childhood trauma, I need to be keenly aware of all my surroundings. You know, that's that but hypersensitivity um as childhood trauma.
00:06:50
Speaker
I have hypersensitivity of everything that's around me. And things show up in patterns. You know, people are going to respond a certain way based on the history of how they responded to certain situations. The situation might change. The parameters of the situation might change.
00:07:06
Speaker
But the overall situation is still the same. So you could tell how people are going to respond. So I'm really good at looking at a situation, examining it and knowing how things are going to turn out.
Civil Rights Movement's Broad Impact
00:07:21
Speaker
Let me give you a private example. I got into a heated debate with a really he was he's still we've had our differences, but he's still a brother to me. We had a difference of opinion about Black Lives Matter.
00:07:35
Speaker
Not about the movement, not about the movement at all, about the wording of it. I said it should be called Black Lives Matter also. I said, just put that little word in there also.
00:07:47
Speaker
He's like, no, you don't need to put that word in there. I said, no, you need to put that word in there also. i was like, because when you put also in there, it doesn't exclude anybody. And it puts an emphasis on the fact that the purpose The purpose of this movement is to show you how a specific group is being excluded.
00:08:06
Speaker
So when you say black lives matter also, it's not saying that other lives don't matter. It's just saying, you know, these lives matter also and y'all are not paying attention to it.
00:08:18
Speaker
He vehemently disagreed with me. My sister vehemently disagreed against ah with me on that. The reason why I said that is because when you put also, there is no way for an opposing group to try to say, well, you're excluding us.
00:08:37
Speaker
Because i i i saw that I foresaw that happening. Why did I see that happening? Because every movement is like that. Let me take you back to the 60s. I told y'all I was gonna go all over the place, but don't worry.
00:08:49
Speaker
I'm gonna bring it all around and make my point. me take you back to the 60s. The 60s were a monumental time for civil rights. Now, people think the civil rights movement is solely about black people.
00:09:02
Speaker
And Martin Luther King and the student and SNCC, the student nonviolent organization, all these organizations were absolutely black and they were absolutely fighting for the rights of black people.
00:09:17
Speaker
What's in that civil rights bill that Lyndon Baines Johnson passed is ascript is that no jobs, no nobody could discriminate on race, gender, and sex.
00:09:31
Speaker
That's what often for is forgotten in the civil rights movement, is that the civil rights movement, though led by black people, wasn't solely for black people. It was for women,
00:09:43
Speaker
And whether or not you believe it, it wasn't the intention, i don't believe, of Martin Luther King and the nonviolent organization, but it was also for the LGBTQ plus community.
00:09:59
Speaker
This is what I mean by that. So when you say that you cannot be excluded from a job, place of employment, things of that for race, gender and sex, that meant that women were now allowed to start applying for jobs that had been traditionally held by men.
00:10:17
Speaker
However, after the Civil Rights ah Amendment was passed, women still found that they were being persecuted against and being told that they could not have men jobs.
00:10:29
Speaker
They could be stewardess. And that's what they called them at that time, not flight attendants, stewardess. um I'm speaking specifically for that time period. Stewardess, teachers, nurses, maids, things like that.
00:10:42
Speaker
They couldn't work in the auto factories in Detroit, in Ohio, because the people that were hiring were saying that they were men jobs. So the women's liberation movement sought to make sure that the Civil Rights Act was properly enforced because it had not been enforced for them.
00:11:06
Speaker
You also see a rise of LGBTQ plus activism. Now, I tell you, I've said it all the time, I cannot be an ally of marginalized people, being marginalized myself, and not support everybody.
00:11:24
Speaker
That means supporting the LGBTQ plus community. Mind you, I am not part of that community, but that does not mean that I cannot be an ally of that community.
00:11:36
Speaker
There are white people who are allies of black rights and black movement. jewish the Jewish population was a huge, had a huge involvement in the civil rights movement because they had seen what can happen, what did happen in Germany. They had seen persecution and segregation.
00:11:58
Speaker
They seen it. And they came here and they were like, hey, hey, hey, I've seen this before, right? So I as a marginalized people, have to be an ally for everybody who's marginalized. That means indigenous folks, that means migrants, that means the LGBTQ plus community, excuse me.
00:12:19
Speaker
What was their movement? Do you realize that during the 60s in the South, you could be arrested for being gay? It was literally in the psychological books that it was a psychological, um issue that they were, as it was the same as being pipe bipolar.
00:12:40
Speaker
These were things that they were fighting for. Now, why am I bringing all of this up? Let's go back to the fact that I think in patterns. If you look at the fights for rights during the 60s, fast forward, not more than 60 years later,
00:12:58
Speaker
We're fighting for the same things all over again. Not
Does History Repeat Itself?
00:13:01
Speaker
quite laws that are segregating, but this administration is trying to. History repeats itself. That's the reason why people don't wanna be taught history.
00:13:10
Speaker
It's the reason why that I'm always on here talking about this is what's going to happen. I knew with the election of Barack Obama that there was going to be pushback.
00:13:21
Speaker
How do I know this? Because during the civil rights movement, as we are moving the country forward to accepting everybody, that was the beginning of the conservative movement.
00:13:34
Speaker
It was the absolute beginning of the conservative movement. Okay. And it was a beginning of Republicans moving to the extreme right. Okay.
00:13:46
Speaker
That's kind of what happens when you make progress for a certain group of people. Other people feel threatened. They say, well, this is not that this is not my way of life. This is not the country I know. No, this is the country that you've been turning a blind eye to.
00:13:59
Speaker
It's been there the whole time. You didn't want to acknowledge it. And guess what? You don't have to look at it. You don't have to acknowledge it if you don't want to, but you do have to respect it.
00:14:11
Speaker
Because marginalized people had the right to exist just like you do. So I knew with the election of Barack Obama, there was going to be a huge tidal wave in other directions. I didn't know it was going to be this bad.
00:14:23
Speaker
I mean, I could have. I knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad. It's almost like people have lost their common sense. But honestly, go back and watch the videos of the 60s.
00:14:37
Speaker
Go back and watch the victor all and the hatred that people had for other people just trying to exist, just to have the same freedoms as them, just to be able to live where they wanted to live, shop where they wanted to shop, go to the bathroom where they wanted to go the bathroom, drink wherever they wanted to drink, just to exist.
00:14:57
Speaker
We see the same things happen here. My mind works in patterns, okay? So yes, as you have a rise of progression, you're gonna have a rise of opposition.
00:15:12
Speaker
The people in power are going to always rise against progression as evident of everything that you see in the 60s. But I say all that to say this. Once again, I think in patterns.
00:15:27
Speaker
Don't be alarmed. I see a lot of people out there saying this is the end of times. It's not. We've seen times that are even worse than this. Just like go back to the 60s. The 60s was incredible freaking decade.
00:15:42
Speaker
I mean, an assassination of important figures, movements all over the place, counter movements. We're in an in a war that's raging out of control, right? The 60s were crazy.
00:15:53
Speaker
The people that grew up in the 60s, We're growing up in a difficult time. The people that grew up in the 70s growing up in a difficult time, eighty s the 80s, the 90s. Like, no matter what decade you end, each generation has their own plight that they're going through.
00:16:09
Speaker
I say all of this to say, once again, i so i look at things in patterns. And I don't want people to be disillusioned. Because as hate rises, it comes to a breaking point.
00:16:23
Speaker
And there's love. And love will come and they'll get to a breaking point. And then there's hate and love and hate and love. It's the balance. It's like the force in Star Wars, right?
00:16:36
Speaker
It's the balance between the light and dark. There's gotta be balance. Whenever there's imbalance, it's gotta even a itself out. There's never, we're never gonna get to the point where we're all lovey-dovey and there is no hate.
00:16:47
Speaker
Sorry.
Finding Authenticity in a Conformist World
00:16:48
Speaker
Where there is differences, there's always gonna be hate. That's human nature. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's just the way it's gonna be. And there's always going to balance itself out when there is a balance.
00:17:01
Speaker
When there is so much progression that being made, the things have to balance itself out. There'll be a counter to that progression to try and even things out to balance out.
00:17:12
Speaker
Where the balance ends, I don't know. I don't know where the happy medium is because there is no pattern that I see where there's a happy medium. I mean, even in Germany right now, you see a rise of the right. I mean, it took 60 years, 80 years, but you're seeing a a segment of the population being extreme right where they had suppressed it for so long.
00:17:39
Speaker
That's just how these things kind of work.
00:17:44
Speaker
I think that you must be strong in your convictions. You must be strong in your ideals. You must research, do true research. TikTok, Instagram, all these things are not gonna give you the answers. History will give you the aster and answers to what's going on now.
00:18:03
Speaker
And then read, read credible sources to find out what's going on and then have formulated opinion.
00:18:14
Speaker
Even if you're getting information from a trusted source, still research your own, come up with your own opinion. Don't take the opinions of others to formulate your own opinion. You could take a grouping of opinions to formulate your opinion, but don't take the opinions of others and then adopt that and then that's your opinion.
00:18:33
Speaker
Think for yourself, don't assimilate, don't conform. Be authentically yourself. And so that's the whole purpose of this first segment. It is literally the purpose of this entire podcast.
00:18:48
Speaker
I interview people. I talk to people. I have conversations with my sister because I am personally continuously going through an evolution to find my authentic self. And you should be doing the same thing.
00:19:01
Speaker
Authentically, I'm a person who thinks in patterns. And I've seen this all before. I know most of the time how things are gonna play out because I've seen it before.
00:19:15
Speaker
And I could tell you, there's always gonna be some good, there's gonna be some bad. You gotta keep your head above water, not get too high, not get too low. Realize that there's always work to be done and never give up.
00:19:28
Speaker
And that work just isn't on people outside, it's also within. Be a thinker. Sit and thought. laugh, cry, every day, live every day.
00:19:45
Speaker
That's what it's all about.
00:19:55
Speaker
Now, i know that first segment Everybody's gonna be like, Bruce, that was real stuff. and So what were you trying to say this morning than everybody? No, if that's what you got from that first segment, that's not the point I was trying to make.
00:20:07
Speaker
And if I didn't didn make that clear, the point I was trying to make is be authentically you, but try to find out who that authentic person is. Don't let anybody else tell you what that authentic person is.
00:20:18
Speaker
Find it for yourself. You have to find self. And I've made two comments specifically that's important in finding yourself not assimilating and not conforming.
Innovators Who Defied Convention
00:20:29
Speaker
Because when you do, you become complacent and a person that is influencing the status quo and the status quo could be detrimental to other people.
00:20:40
Speaker
What do I mean by not conforming and not being, and not assimilating? Some of the best things that ever been discovered or invented here in America have been from people who didn't conform and assimilate.
00:20:53
Speaker
What do I mean by that? If you think of Italian food, you think of Mexican food, it's become Americanized. But the basic premise is people from Italy, and Mexico, from other countries bring their cuisine here and give us ah piece of who there are they are, piece of what their culture is.
00:21:15
Speaker
You have inventors who've invented and incredible things that didn't assimilate and didn't conform and invented stuff that we still use today that's important. If they assimilated and conform, we'd be missing on these great inventions.
00:21:31
Speaker
I'm gonna get to the women's movement. It's all leading to nonconformity and not assimilating, but I wanna talk about some really cool inventors of our past. Let's go to Nikola Tesla.
00:21:42
Speaker
Nikola Tesla. I don't know what I said the first time, but wasn't that. So Tesla has a bad name because of the person running it and some of the things that he's done in ah and the government. Don't correlate the company Tesla with the inventor. The inventor was born in Serbia, migrated here in the United States and became a key failure figure in the development of the AC electrical systems.
00:22:06
Speaker
So reason why we got AC up in this piece, it's hot. especially in the summertime in DC, it's hot. It's so hot. If I didn't have AC, I'd fight every day. don't like being hot.
00:22:17
Speaker
Being hot is the worst thing in the world to me. I can bundle up when it's cold and make myself warmer. It's no way in the hell you can make yourself cooler. You just can't, unless you got some AC.
00:22:28
Speaker
He was an inventor that. Why is he important? Because at no time did he conform or assimilate to American society. He held true to his roots.
00:22:40
Speaker
Alexander Graham Bell, we all know about this Scotsman who invented the telephone in Boston. He also had strong ties to the Scottish heritage that he never gave up. They were gave him his unique vote your views and uncontu unconventional approaches that sometimes set him apart from mainstream American culture.
00:22:58
Speaker
But think about it. If he didn't invent the telephone, how the hell going to talk to everybody? How the hell are gonna text? You can't text without telephone. Well, actually you can if you got an iMac, but you know the point I'm trying to get at.
00:23:09
Speaker
What about David Lindquist? Y'all don't know him. He was a Swedish immigrant who developed and patented key improvements to the electric elevator. Think about if we didn't have him. were walking up those stairs, but he maintained his distinct cultural identity of being a Swedish person.
00:23:27
Speaker
He didn't assimilate or conform, and these are people that created Things that we still use today. I live on the fifth floor so I can walk up the stairs, but my building goes up always all all the way to 16 floors, right? Sometimes it's a workout, I'll do the stairs.
00:23:43
Speaker
And let me tell you, that's a workout. Remember in good times, the elevator was broken. They had to work ah walk up on all all those stairs. That sucks. I'm glad he invented the elevator. Now, what are some ways that you could invent things and not assimilate and and conform because your identity doesn't allow you to assimilate and conform because society says that no matter what you do, you can't assimilate and conform.
00:24:09
Speaker
You'll always be looked at as other. Let's talk about black inventors. Granville T. Woods. Y'all don't know about him. He was known as the Black Edison. Woods held over 50 patents for railway technology and electrical devices.
00:24:24
Speaker
Despite his achievement, he spent much of his life and resources defending his work from legal challenges by white inventors, ah including Thomas Edison. Funny that he was called a Black Edison. Thomas Edison has struggled to ah profit from his adventures due to systematic racism.
00:24:41
Speaker
Louis Litmer, born to former enslaved pen parents, Litmer invented the carbon filament for the light bulb and worked with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, even though they stole his stuff and he couldn't get any credit because of the racial barriers.
00:25:00
Speaker
Then you got Garrett Morgan. I've talked about him um before, but he was the inventor of the traffic light and the gas mask. Now y'all might be saying to yourself, Why is the traffic light important? Y'all know how bad people drive?
00:25:13
Speaker
Think if there was no traffic lights telling them when to stop, slow down and go. That's important. the purpose The purpose of this segment is to talk about non-conformity, non-assimilation and how that brings about change.
00:25:27
Speaker
Which brings me to the feature person. The women's liberation movement in is... is
00:25:37
Speaker
ah Very important. I'm not going to compare movements. I'm not going to compare ah black rights movements to women's rights movements to LGBTQ plus movements. They are all extremely important.
Celebrating Gloria Steinem's Legacy
00:25:49
Speaker
All marginalized people, all people held back. OK, all had laws that were against them. Gloria Steinem. to me, is the most important woman in the 1960s women liberation movement.
00:26:07
Speaker
Who is she? She was an American journalist, writer, and one of the most influential leaders of the women's liberation movement, particularly active from the 1960s through the 70s. She co-founded Check this out now. She co-founded the New York Magazine and later Miss Magazine, the first major feminist magazine run by and for women. So people are like, so what's the big deal? Women have magazines all the time. No, they did not.
00:26:32
Speaker
And they didn't have magazines that catered to them. She not only co-founded the New York Magazine, but also Miss Magazine. Hell of a woman. But why do I feel like outside of that, she's really important?
00:26:46
Speaker
Because men, back then, and still today, Very toxic, very very misogynist. Feel like they could treat women in any old type of way.
00:26:57
Speaker
And one areas where this was happening was the Playboy Bunny Club. This was a club in New York City, a and she went undercover and wrote an article about it. So in 1963, Steiner went undercover as a Playboy Bunny at the New York Playboy Club for the show magazine, using the alias as Mary Ochoz.
00:27:19
Speaker
Her two-part expose of Bunny's Tale revealed the exploitive and demeaning working conditions faced by bunnies, low pay, mandatory physical enhancements like stuffing their costumes, strict strict rules, sexual objectification, harassment, and even threats of violence.
00:27:35
Speaker
The story provided a rare inside look at the reality behind the Playboy Club's glamorous image, exposing the misogyny and the labor abuses that were otherwise hidden from public view.
00:27:46
Speaker
So people think about this, and and I guess the the easiest thing that we would have to compare this to now would be Hooters. I mean, in and of itself, that's just misogynist as hell.
00:28:00
Speaker
Because there wouldn't be a place called A-Plant's We're there. And y'all know exactly what i'm talking about called eggplants. There wouldn't be a place called eggplants. There's never been a restaurant called that. I believe that that would be a hit, especially if you had brunch, eggplants, eggplants brunch. Women would be going there all. Not just women. Men would be going there all the time. they Okay.
00:28:22
Speaker
I just came up with a great idea. i have it time stamped. I know what it was. If all of a sudden there's a restaurant called eggplants, y'all are giving me some royalties for that because that is my idea.
00:28:34
Speaker
But you look at some of the things, and remember, this is 1960s. I always go back to the point of the movie Back to the Future. Biff was a villain at the highest order.
00:28:49
Speaker
And you think about it, it's a comedy family movie. But Biff was literally trying to sexually assault Marty McFly's mother while his boy it was a was about to commit murder on Marty McFly. They had tried to kill him several times. They tried to run him over when he was on his bike.
00:29:06
Speaker
And it was described then as boys will be boys. That's the reason why the Me Too movement was so important. because here we are 50 years later, 50, 60 years later, right?
00:29:20
Speaker
And women are still being subjected to some of these same harsh treatments. So this was very, very important where Gloria Steinem did by exposing the bunny club because it brought it out to the world.
00:29:33
Speaker
Okay. Steinem's reporting was groundbreaking because she used immersive undercover journalism, a method that widely employed, was not widely employed by women at the time to challenge powerful cultural institutions.
00:29:47
Speaker
The expose made her a target for ridicule and professional backlash, but it also established her as a fearless investigative journalist willing to confront sexism directly. Now think about this.
00:29:59
Speaker
She's writing an article and basically showing the mistreatment of women in the workplace. Now, the counter argument, remember, I told you I think of patterns. So here's a counter argument. People are going to say, well, the women don't have to work there if they don't want it. If they don't want to, go back to the time, right?
00:30:18
Speaker
Where could women work? They could be nurses. They could be teachers, which you had to go to school for. Okay. You could be maids. You could be stewardesses. And oh, by the way, they had rules in the airlines being a stutorist stutor stewardess. I'm having trouble talking it today, but y'all know what I'm trying to say.
00:30:35
Speaker
A stewardess. At the age of 32, they were fired.
00:30:40
Speaker
You had to maintain an attractive level. First of all, you had to be attractive to be a stewardess. And the purpose of that was, it was to make sure that the men wanted to come on airline and analyze actually for the fought against the lawsuits of women that were terminated after they turned 32 by saying that if they didn't have attractive women, if they didn't have young attractive women, then men wouldn't want to fly on the planes.
00:31:06
Speaker
That was their legitimate legal argument in 1963. So when those people say, well, didn't have to work there, where the hell else where it where were, where these type of women allowed to work where they weren't gonna be objectified, persecuted, and threats of violence?
00:31:23
Speaker
And you have Gloria Steinem, who writes this expose, a exposing the truth, saying, hey, these people are being mistreated. These are illegal things that are happening to them.
00:31:34
Speaker
Everybody needs to know about that. And she's attacked and ridiculed. People hate being exposed for who they are. They hate it. Think about what they call Martin Luther King when he was out there. Oh, he's praised now. You know, I love going to his a memorial here in Washington, DC. Oh, he is praised now.
00:31:54
Speaker
During that time, go back and read newspaper articles, go back and watch news reports and interviews from people outside talking about Martin Luther King. He was one of the most hated men in America.
00:32:06
Speaker
He called him a socialist communist. Most hated man. Praise now because what he was doing was right. Gloria Steinem, what she was doing was right.
00:32:17
Speaker
Hated at the time. Praise now. So history, right? Patterns. Just the whole point I'm trying to make is that you can see what's going to happen when progression rises.
00:32:30
Speaker
The power goes against it. and And she had to deal with all of that, but she didn't care. her works Her work unmasked the contradiction of the Playboy Clubs being celebrated as symbols of sexual liberation was actually perpetrating the exploitation of women.
00:32:48
Speaker
They weren't sexually liberating for women. And you know what? To his credit, Hugh Hefner took that and made changes to the Playboy Bunny Club, but it had to be thrown in his face or made it aware Hugh Hefner has his, nobody's clean.
00:33:09
Speaker
What I mean by that is even people who are righteous in some of their ideologies have contradictions. So if you look at the history of Hugh Hefner, he made a lot of civil rights.
00:33:23
Speaker
He was an advocate for civil rights. for certain groups. That's the point I'm trying to make. And so that's reason why i say that I can't be marginalized person and not be an ally for all marginalized people.
00:33:35
Speaker
I can't just say, well, I'm just an ally for these people and not those people because I begin to contradict myself. And though Hugh Hefner definitely made strides in being an ally for civil rights and did make this change when it was brought to his attention
00:33:53
Speaker
He also has some iffy stuff in his past, right? Why do I love Gloria Steinem so much? Because, and once again, patterns.
00:34:05
Speaker
A lot of time, women's liberation movements and the activists were labeled as, to kind of discredit them, lesbians.
00:34:18
Speaker
Whether they were not attractive or attractive to mass appeal, right? Listen to the words I'm saying, and these are not my thoughts. These are the thoughts of the people at the time that were going against them.
00:34:34
Speaker
And here you have Gloria Steinem, this beautiful, smart, outspoken, attractive woman fighting for women's rights. Not to say that she was the first, but She's not.
00:34:46
Speaker
There were a lot of attractive women who were not gay fighting for women's rights. I got a person that I know. And.
00:34:59
Speaker
This person is such an idiot and they really are. Sometimes they say things and I'm just like, what's going on in your head? And we were watching WNBA highlights. And that person turns to me and says, you know they're all gay, right?
00:35:12
Speaker
And I said, well, that's a real generalized statement to make. Well, no, it's true though. I've seen it. You seen where? I've seen it around. It's just a dumb argument. When you make generalizations is like that, it's meant to discredit them for who they are.
00:35:28
Speaker
In other words, because they play basketball, they must therefore be lesbians because they're not girly enough for you.
00:35:39
Speaker
This is the reason why Gloria Steinem was so very, very important. She was the stereotypical girly woman. And I'm using these terms to describe how the people that opposed her would describe her.
00:35:53
Speaker
This was a woman in every sense of the word, a feminine by those archaic standards woman who was speaking out in support of women.
00:36:05
Speaker
It was very, very important. Combining her journalistic skills with her activism, using her mass appeal to reach wider audience rather than focus solely on academic or grassroots activism, she was media savvy, charismatic, used her public profile to bring feminist issues into mainstream discourse, making feminism accessible and visible to the general public.
00:36:29
Speaker
Her undercover work and willingness to use her personal experience as a tool for social critique set her apart from many of her contemporaries, which often relied on theory or collective action alone.
00:36:40
Speaker
Steinem's approach was intersectional, before the term was widely used, supporting not only women's rights, but also issues of race, labor, and sexuality. Look, this woman was bad as hell.
00:36:54
Speaker
But, okay, so... Y'all can hate me for this. I'm okay. I'm willing to take that hit. This is like my ideal woman. ah swear I love a strong, independent woman that stands up for herself and is not willing to go into the fire for the defense of herself.
00:37:15
Speaker
That is literally my prototype of my dream woman. Now I'm making it about how ah she's appealing to me as at a dating term, but I respect her.
00:37:29
Speaker
That's the most important. I respect her work, her intelligence, what she has done to further better women. Not only was she the co-founder of Miss Magazine, which I already talked about, she revolutionized media coverage of women's issues and provided a platform for feminist voices.
00:37:46
Speaker
She helped establish a National Women's Political Caucus, the Correlation of Labor Union Women, Women's Actions Alliance, Women's Media Center, and Miss Foundation for Women.
00:37:58
Speaker
She supported and led Votes for Choice, Women Against Pornography, and Choice USA. Not only that, she was an advocate for reproductive rights, including but but publicly speaking about her own abortion in 1969, which helped break taboos and advance the movement for abortion rights.
00:38:15
Speaker
She mobilized women in politics, increased the participation and representation, raised millions for women's rights organizations and causes, including Equality Now.
00:38:25
Speaker
She authored influential books and essays such as Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellion, Revolution from Within, and the satirical essay, If Men Could Menstrape, which changed gender norms and societal power structures.
00:38:41
Speaker
She served as a prominent lecturer and media spokesman, bringing feminist ideas to broad audience audiences. she written she She received numerous honors, including the presidential meal of fraing the Presidential Medal of Freedom and inducted to the National Women's Hall of Fame.
00:38:58
Speaker
She continued to inspire activism and dialogue around equality, social justice and ongoing on feminine women's rights. I'm telling you, man, she was a bad man pajama.
00:39:11
Speaker
Bad man pajama. And it's important. Not assimilating, not a conforming, not saying not staying in the status quo when it's not right.
00:39:24
Speaker
It's all about being authentically yourself, not being force-fed what you should believe, but figuring out what you think is morally right. And we all know what's morally right. We feel it in our bones.
00:39:39
Speaker
I'm not talking about the things that we agree or disagree with. We know what's right. What's right is everybody should have the right to be who they are. And it's these people who don't assimilate or conform that show you, hey, just be who you are because who you are is beautiful.
00:39:59
Speaker
And it's true. Who you are is beautiful. I like you. Some of you. don't like all of y'all. Some y'all are some hateful bastards, but I like the majority of you.
00:40:10
Speaker
I mean, I do. And Gloria Steinem is a prime example of why I do this show. I don't assimilate. I don't conform. i don't want you to assimilate or conform. I don't want you to believe everything that I believe. i don't you I don't want you to agree with everything that I agree with. I don't want to be right.
00:40:26
Speaker
I want to be correct. I want you to want to want to be correct. That's a part of growth.
00:40:34
Speaker
Looking at a situation. realizing that might be good for you, but it's bad for other people and try and rectify that. Isn't that how we should all live?
00:40:46
Speaker
Shouldn't we aspire to be people of change and not stay the same? Just food for thought.
Karma and Personal Growth: A Reflective Story
00:41:01
Speaker
A lot of people I've ah passingly given glimpse of this super toxic relationship that I was once in. And people have made comments, DMed me and said, when are you going to tell the story of this toxic relationship that you were in?
00:41:21
Speaker
And I was like, ah, that's that's deeply personal. And if I tell the story, there are people that will know who it's about. The story might get back to them. They might have, you know, some issues with it.
00:41:36
Speaker
And then I thought to myself, as long as I don't say my say their name, say her name. I'm in the clear legally, I could kind of tell the story. And it was a toxic relationship, not solely because of her, also because of me.
00:41:51
Speaker
So let's talk about my toxic. My toxic was, and I've stated before that I hadn't been faithful. Like i wasn't I wasn't a faithful cat. I met this young woman when I was 23 years old. We were in a three-year relationship off and on, the most toxic relationship I've ever been in in my entire life.
00:42:06
Speaker
And it started off toxic. I met at her at a club. I was in the VIP section because I knew somebody that worked at the club. So I was in the VIP section hanging out with all the football players, all the NFL players, and NBA players. They thought I was somebody because I was up there.
00:42:22
Speaker
I was not. Had my own little section with my boys. We was drinking Heineken's. We didn't even have a bottle because we couldn't afford a bottle because I wasn't one of the people, but just chilling there. and ah Funny story, my orthodontist assistant, because I've had braces twice in my life, once when I was 13 and 14, and then again, when I was 17 to 18, it was my orthodontist assistant when I was 17 and 18. And they were all, like I'm 17, 18, right?
00:42:49
Speaker
They were all college women that were orthodontist assistants. They were all college age. And they would always comment about how cute I was and stuff like that. But I was underage for most of the time that I was there.
00:43:01
Speaker
Now I'm 23 years old, so it's been five years. And she's there because one of the bartenders was also one of my former orthodontist sisters. So she's there to see her friend. And I'm finally of age, so she can finally make that move. And then she does.
00:43:20
Speaker
And she is all on me, kissing on me on the club and everything. And then I see this young woman who I eventually would date for three years. And I tapped my boy on the shoulder and I was like, I got to talk to this girl. She was stunningly beautiful.
00:43:34
Speaker
And I walk up to her and I was like, with my old fake suave self said, hey, you know, we got a table up here. You know, why don't you, you know, stop by and hang out, you know, have a drink with us. She was with a couple of ah women ah that I later found out were her best friends.
00:43:48
Speaker
And she was like, okay. And when she comes up there, literally the orthodontist assistant is kissing all up on me. And I'm eyeballing her. And and i I said to her, I'm just like, hey, you know, this ain't no big thing. This is my orthodontist assistant. She says to me, that's such an incredible story. That can't be a lie.
00:44:05
Speaker
Anyway, we exchanged numbers and we start to date. And eventually we get into a relationship. And this was a toxic time for me because i probably hadn't dealt with And I told y'all the story of me being cheated on in the relationship prior.
00:44:22
Speaker
I had not fully dealt with that. So I had some real insecurities going into this relationship. And the person I was dating, she had some real insecurities just in life in general. So we're two toxic young people that have not dealt with their insecurities trying to enter into this relationship. And this was legitimately my first real relationship.
00:44:43
Speaker
We're parents. We met parents and the whole nine. We even talked about moving in together. And I tried hard. I tried hard not to cheat. I really did. And for a good, i don't know, six, seven months, I didn't. And y'all are saying to yourself, that's not a big deal.
00:44:59
Speaker
For me at that time, that absolutely was. What broke my back was my sister needed to borrow the car to go to school. And I would routinely, when I didn't need my car, routinely let my sister borrow the car to go to school.
00:45:14
Speaker
It just so happens that one day my sister needed to borrow the car was the same day as my girlfriend's birthday. Now, mind you, my sister just needed the car and would be done by noon, 10, 1030, 11 noon around that time.
00:45:30
Speaker
My girlfriend the time worked in the restaurant industry. She's not getting up before noon, but she was adamant that she wanted me to spend the night so that she could wake up with me right next to her on her birthday. And I said, that's not going to be possible because my sister needs to borrow my car for school.
00:45:47
Speaker
So I'll be here before you wake up, but I'm not going to be able to spend the night. And the woman said, well why can't your sister just take the bus?
00:45:58
Speaker
Mind you, it's like two different buses to take. i was like, no, I'm not gonna make my sister take the bus. She's got that whole day. She just borrowed my car. This was a fight going back and forth. That broke my heart.
00:46:09
Speaker
And because she was trying to make me choose between her and my sister. And I didn't like the position that she put me in. I looked out for my sister because that's what I do. Met up with her later on.
00:46:22
Speaker
Before she even woke up, I was there for her birthday, took her head, did everything that she wanted to do for her birthday. She was spoiled rotten, right? Not like she came for money. She didn't come for money, but she liked money. Spoiled her rotten. I had it because I was working in the restaurant industry and i and I had dough then.
00:46:40
Speaker
Made the day all about her. Next day, I come to her with tears in my eyes. Said I gotta break up with you. She was like, what? I don't understand. We just had this great day. Yeah, you made me choose between me and my sister. I was not gonna ruin your birthday, but I can't be with you anymore.
00:46:55
Speaker
She was crying, said I didn't, you know, yes, that was selfish of me. I was wrong. I'm sorry. Please don't break up with me. And I took that sorry. I did. But I never forgave her for making me make the choice.
00:47:08
Speaker
So I started to cheat. So that was my toxic thing. I hadn't dealt with the fact that, you know, I had some issues about the prior girl cheating on me. And... She made me you know choose between me and my sister and I never forgave her. What I should have done was just said, nah, at the very least we need to take a break.
00:47:27
Speaker
But I used it as, hey, I got a girlfriend that I do actually care about, but now I'm go play. And ladies and gentlemen, I did. She never found out about anything or at least never confronted me on anything.
00:47:42
Speaker
Two years later, We get into it and things are just bad. I'm cheating all the time. She doesn't know it. I'm working all the time. We're hardly spending any time together.
00:47:52
Speaker
We get like two days a week and together. And most of the time I'm canceling on her with one of those days because I'm hungover. And ah Sunday was usually our day. And she was like, hey, um call me in morning. What do you want to do today?
00:48:07
Speaker
And was like, I don't know, I'm hungover right now. She was like, are you canceling on me again? Because it was like, I don't know, seven or eight Sundays in a row that I canceled on her. She was like, yeah. I was like, yeah, I'm not i'm not feeling good. I'm hungover. She was like, okay.
00:48:22
Speaker
All right, then I guess I'll talk to you later. And hung the phone. I called her back and I was like, yo, we should break up. Like, this is obviously an issue. We should break up. she was like, yeah, you're right.
00:48:33
Speaker
We should. So we did. let me tell you how toxic we were. Her birthday comes around again not soon after we break up. I'm a manager at a international restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe.
00:48:45
Speaker
And she's like, hey, what are we doing for my but for my birthday? And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm working that day. Why are you working that day? Why am I not working that day? Why am I? We're we're broken up. Like, why? Why would I and not be working that day?
00:49:00
Speaker
I don't understand. It's my birthday. We are broken up. Like, I don't understand what you don't get. She goes on and on. She gets into this, not a tirade, but a hissy fit.
00:49:12
Speaker
And I'm like, you know what? Fine. out I will find somebody to cover my shift. I will take the day off and I will take you out for your birthday, even though you are not my girlfriend. We're not even friends at this point. We haven't been kicking it or nothing.
00:49:25
Speaker
We might chit chat every once in a while, but we are clearly, we are not together, but I gotta take you out for your birthday. And I spent dough. We went to Roof Chris. I'm 25 years old, okay?
00:49:36
Speaker
I take her to Roof Chris. It was like a $300 bill. We ordering wine bottles. We got all the hors d'oeuvres, all the sides, everything for her birthday. For a woman that's not my girlfriend.
00:49:47
Speaker
Well, we kind of entered in this gray area where we weren't together, but we were together? Y'all know what I meant. Right now, they call it a situationship.
00:50:00
Speaker
That's what we were in. We were in a situationship for a good year. And we would go back and forth. Actually, no, we would never go back and forth. She would always be like, we should be together. And I also also i would always be like,
00:50:14
Speaker
In my head, why? I've got a good situation where you go out on dates, but yet you still come back to me each night. You don't hook up with any other guys. You just go out and they take you out on dates, but you still come to me.
00:50:26
Speaker
And I can date and do whatever the hell I want to do. Why would I give that up? Till one day i was a bartender at an Irish bar and there was this naval captain. And he was a smooth dude.
00:50:39
Speaker
And he always had women around. He always had a court around him of just people around him and women around him. And I low-key admired this person just because of who he was, what he had done in his life, the things that he had done in his life and who he was in his golden years. Because he was like 50, 55, 60 to difference.
00:50:57
Speaker
you old kid that's that's a big difference you're old And so I was telling him the story about my situation with me and and and the girl and you know how we was in this situationship and you know how I was treating her. And I wasn't treating her well.
00:51:11
Speaker
you know I wasn't treating her well at that time. I don't even know why she wanted to be with me. yeah I was toxic. I was not treating her well. And he was like, no you can't do that. If you love her, he was like, do you love her? And I was like, yeah, I got love for her.
00:51:23
Speaker
Yeah, I love her. arm I got love for her. He's like, if you love her, then you treat her with respect. The person that you love, you're supposed to be kind and you don't want them to hurt. And something that he said resonated.
00:51:34
Speaker
At 26 years old, i had a man who was a ladies' man. Not a bad ladies, man. He just never treated women with disrespect. He was always honest with them.
00:51:45
Speaker
And he was like, just this is the way that you're supposed to be. And I was like, yeah, you're right. This is the way that I'm supposed to be. So I called her that night and I said, I want to try and work things out. And she was like, I don't know.
00:51:57
Speaker
I've been talking about this for a long time and I just don't think that we're supposed to be together. And I was like, no, no, no, no. wish so i I'm changed. I'm different. let's Let's try and work this out. Let me tell you how toxic we both were.
00:52:10
Speaker
I said, why don't you come over? I'll cook a special dinner for you. So I do. I went and got some lobster tails. I made stuffed chicken with crab meat. And I told her what the menu was.
00:52:22
Speaker
So it was going to be lobster tails, appetizer, stuffed chicken with with lobster or crab. I forgot what it was. Sides were going to be cream spinach and loaded mashed potatoes, right? And I was going to have a dessert, some wine, just come on over and have dinner.
00:52:39
Speaker
So she comes over. we're We're vibing. I got the music playing. You know, we're going to try to work things out. e Eat the lobster tails, having some wine, setting the table, put the table down, put the food in front of her.
00:52:53
Speaker
And she goes, huh? I'm like, yo, what's up? She was like, I thought you said we were having loaded mashed potatoes. Now, let me give you the backstory to that. I'm running late, okay?
00:53:05
Speaker
I'm running late, preparing everything, cooking everything for her to come over, getting everything ready, right? Cleaning up my room, because you know, know that where that night's going to lead to, right? So I didn't have time to actually mash the potatoes.
00:53:20
Speaker
So instead of doing mashed, loaded mashed potatoes, I did a loaded baked potato. Still loaded potato. just baked instead of mashed.
00:53:31
Speaker
That's the only change I made, okay? She says, you said that you were gonna have loaded mashed potatoes. You know, you should just do what you say that you're gonna do.
00:53:43
Speaker
And I lost it, ladies and gentlemen. I lost it. And I said, you know what? This thing is over. You need to leave. And she was like, no, I'm not leaving. You invited me over for dinner, let's just eat. I was like, no, no, no, no. no I'm so mad right now.
00:54:01
Speaker
You need to leave my place. this This date is over. You got to go. She would not leave. She would not leave. So I grab her, ah it' almost like a bear hug, but not a bear hug.
00:54:14
Speaker
I wanted to wrap my arms around her so that she wouldn't hit me. I lift her up very gently, ladies and gentlemen, very gently, okay? Lift her up, carry her to the front door, put her outside of the door, slam the door.
00:54:30
Speaker
Cause she wouldn't leave. She would not leave. And I wanted her to leave. And it's my place.
00:54:36
Speaker
Toxic. I'm telling you, man, toxic. We were both just so toxic. She's banging on my door. Let me in, let me in, let me in. I'm like, the cops are eventually going to come. Cause I live in a high rise apartment building. The cops are eventually going to come. If you don't leave, I'm not, I'm not letting you back in.
00:54:50
Speaker
At this point, I can't let you back in. You need to go home. Somewhere along the line, we still try to work things out. At the beginning of the intro, I said karma and God, right?
00:55:03
Speaker
This is what I learned about karma and God. This is the punchline to the story. So even after that, we're still trying to work things out. And I don't know. She's feeling iffy about it. I'm feeling iffy about it.
00:55:17
Speaker
and And I'm not digging this situation ship. So I pray to God. And this is the reason why I believe in God. He always answers my prayers. You just gotta to be careful what you pray for.
00:55:29
Speaker
I pray to God. I say, God, give me a sign if I'm supposed to pursue this or let it go. I need to know because I can't deal with this anxiety anymore. Just give me a sign.
00:55:43
Speaker
I'm not lying to you guys. I swear on everything that I love, that I own, on family members' lives, I swear on everything. Within an hour later, I get a phone call from her, right?
00:55:57
Speaker
I don't pick up the phone. I let it go to voicemail. There's a voicemail that gets you guys left. I said, okay, I'm gonna check that voicemail later because obviously it's the answer to my prayer and I'm gonna find out which way that I'm supposed to go.
00:56:15
Speaker
Here's the thing. There wasn't a phone call from her. It was a butt dial from her. And in that butt dial, in that voice message that was left was a conversation that she was having with her homegirls out to dinner.
00:56:29
Speaker
And in that conversation, she's talking about being out on a date with another man, going back to his place and being intimate. Not all the way intimate, because she was like, I still love Bruce so much, I couldn't go through with it.
00:56:43
Speaker
But everything up to that point, oh, that shattered my heart. But it was karma, right? Because all that playing around that I was doing in the situationship came back to bite me.
00:56:57
Speaker
And though not the worst way that it could have been, but God definitely answered my prayers. And it was God and karma that changed my life that day. Well, sort of. I kind of learned my lesson, but really kind of didn't learn my lesson.
00:57:10
Speaker
I just matured out of that. You know, i'm not I'm not that same person anymore. But it showed me something. It showed me what you put out there in the universe. You get you go get back.
00:57:23
Speaker
You're going to get it back somehow, some way. Karma, I believe, is a real thing. People will say bad things don't happen to bad people. It does just we may not see it, but it does.
00:57:35
Speaker
Right. And what you be careful, what you pray for, because you just might get it. I got my answer. I got my answer. My answer was we didn't need to be together anymore because there was no way.
00:57:48
Speaker
that I was gonna be able to come back from that. That's how toxic I was at the time. If I really truly loved her, I would have been able to get past that. But yeah obviously I didn't truly love her because I wasn't able to get past that. And you know what?
00:57:59
Speaker
Here's the beauty of the thing. That person that she was intimate with that night on that butt down phone call to me, they've been happily married for over 20 years.
00:58:12
Speaker
That was her person. And I'm so happy for her that she found that. Not at that time I wasn't, at that time I was pissed. You know what saying?
00:58:22
Speaker
But now that was the best thing that could have happened. That was God answering all of our prayers. She met the person that she was supposed to be with. And we realized that we were not supposed to be together.
00:58:34
Speaker
Cause trust me, we were heading down a disastrous path. We were talking about moving in together and marriage and kids and the whole nine. remember going home, crying, hurt, distraught. Once I got that phone call, I went home to my parents, my brother sister crying in the basement, his screaming, I was going to marry this girl.
00:58:51
Speaker
26 at the time, you know, I'm an idiot. I don't know. Like, you know, that'd being I was a kid. i thought that was the case. I didn't even really don't know if I really ever truly, truly loved that person.
00:59:05
Speaker
I think I liked the idea of them being around. I think I cared for that person, but loved them. I never treated them as ah as ah as you would treat a loved one.
00:59:15
Speaker
So I probably didn't. But her and her husband happily married. And so, yes. Karma, praying to God, you gonna get your answers, you gonna get what's coming to you.
00:59:28
Speaker
And y'all may say, well, she was toxic too. Towards the end, I was way more toxic than she was. I mean, she had the thing with the dinner thing, but after that, we I had the conversation, I told her how i hurt I was, and ah she I had to honestly say she wasn't toxic anymore.
00:59:43
Speaker
My ass was still pretty doggone toxic. So look, we are both better off now than we were 20 years ago. That's how long it's been.
00:59:55
Speaker
But I just wanted to tell you a little story. You know, I was very, very personal in this episode about, you know, how my mind works, how it does in patterns. I should have seen the pattern that was coming. I should have seen the pattern that was coming.
01:00:08
Speaker
um and But, you know, hey, you live and you learn, and I'm a better person for all the pain that I inflicted on myself and that I caused. You live and you learn. You hopefully become free, free, the best version of yourself, the most authentic version of yourself.
01:00:26
Speaker
And that's what it's all about. And on that note, I want to thank everyone for listening.
Episode Conclusion and Engagement
01:00:32
Speaker
I want to thank you for watching. And until next time, as always, I'll holla.
01:00:41
Speaker
Woo! That was a hell of a show. Thank you for rocking with us here on Unsolicited Perspectives with Bruce Anthony. Now before you go, don't forget to follow, subscribe, like, comment, and share our podcast wherever you're listening or watching it to it. Pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock will will enjoy it also. So share the wealth, share the knowledge, share the noise.
01:01:04
Speaker
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01:01:53
Speaker
So any donation would be appreciative. Most importantly, I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening and watching and supporting us. And I'll catch you next time.
01:02:05
Speaker
Audi 5000. Peace.