A Short One - That's What She Said

Welcome to The Unhinged Father! In today’s unfiltered, candid episode, I reflect on the hardships and challenges that seem to intensify each year. Though life may feel more difficult and complicated with age, responsibilities, and the rising cost of living, there’s something important about striving to appreciate what we have, even amidst the chaos.

In this short, off-the-cuff episode, I share thoughts on:

•The Growing Weight of Responsibilities: From navigating parenthood, work-life balance, and unexpected setbacks to the ever-increasing costs of raising kids and keeping life running.

•Finding Empathy and Connection: As a recruiter and dad, I’ve developed greater empathy over the years, understanding the real struggles parents face when work and family demands collide.

•Balancing Gratitude and Hardships: Life isn’t just about focusing on the good; it’s about acknowledging both the struggles and the blessings, processing them, and moving forward.

I want to be open about the emotional roller coaster of parenthood and adulthood, encouraging those who feel overwhelmed or stuck. You’re not alone in the muck, and together, we can find ways to keep moving forward and make the most of the moments that matter.

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting episode featuring Meyer Croft from Here 4 The Dads! We’ll be discussing fatherhood, healthy exposure for kids, and more.

Don’t forget to subscribe and follow on social media for upcoming content, including clips from our conversation with Meyer. Thanks for listening, and let’s keep striving for the best life we can build

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Upcoming Episode Preview
• 7:29 Gratitude and Life's Fast Pace

Transcript

Robbie (00:01)
Everyone welcome into the show. Hope you're all having a great day so far just a quick short episode today Not really a huge agenda agenda. Just gonna kind of spitball I have a great episode coming out next week had an interview with Meyer Croft from here for the dads Instagram and podcast and just getting that all squared away. That took up a lot more of my time It's gonna be a little bit of a longer episode, but I'm really excited for you all to hear it think we talked about some great things in it

And actually, in all honesty, I'm recording this the morning that I'm releasing it, which is is not very typical. But I wanted to get something out for consistency sake. I've been really good about getting something out on Wednesday, even if it's not at, you know, four a.m. in the morning. Just I've been getting things out and I wanted to make sure I got something out today. Let you all know that I'm not going to have like a full episode out today, but that we've got something good coming next week. And so today, what I really just wanted to touch about is something that's been

really at the top of my mind lately is, I don't know, this year has just seemed like it's been a really, really difficult year so far. And I feel like every year that I get, when I get older and older, it's like every year I'm saying that, man, this year was fucking hard. This year was shitty. This year sucked ass. I don't know what it is. It doesn't really matter. It seems like every year since 2019, 2020,

which we all know 2020 did suck ass with the pandemic and everything shutting down and us changing completely how we live within society. Maybe that's what sparked it all. But this year just seems like it's been full of so many challenges for me and my family. And I'm just sitting back and reflecting on it. And like I said, I don't know if it's that the years are actually getting harder or if we're coming across more challenges. But my my gut

instinct is that life just continues to get harder as you get older. You have more responsibilities. You have kids, your kids get older, they have things that they need to do. Everything's really expensive. Life gets life gets more expensive. It doesn't get cheaper until maybe one day you retire and you you downsize. But as of right now, we have so many things that we need to pay for. So many things coming up. Kids need to be driven places. You have to pick them up. They get sick. There's just so much going on. when you're

when you're working, it's funny, I work in recruitment, putting people to work. And I used to sit there and think, how can people just not show up at 730 and stay till 530? Like, what excuses do you have? I'm here, I'm doing this shit. And as I get older and I have kids and I have these responsibilities, I feel so much more empathy towards the people that I used to judge. I'm like, now if someone has to miss an interview because their kid got sick or they don't have childcare,

I'm like, fuck, I get it. Because that could happen to me. And me and my wife typically have our shit together most of the time. not to look down on anyone else. I'm like, fuck, if it's hard for us and we're blessed, we're privileged in terms of we work hard, we have funds, we have family that's able to help us.

All of these things like someone who doesn't have that like a single mom or a single dad or someone who doesn't have the resources that we do. Those people are going to run into these challenges and a lot of times they're met with no empathy, no caring, no compassion, none of that stuff and it just. For me, it's something that I see a lot more of now and I'm almost not. I'm not shameful. I was in a different point in my life, but I just look back and.

and can't understand why I didn't think like that. That kind of gets back into this idea of the years just seeming to get harder and harder and having these constant challenges and...

I've been doing a pretty good job of just focusing on the good things in my life. The fact that I have two beautiful little boys that are well-mannered, well-behaved, that love us, that like to hang out with us, that have a lot of fun. We have a roof over our heads. We have food on the table. And, you know, at the end of the day, we have a lot of family that's here to help us and take care of us. If anything does, you know, go...

go sideways, but me and my wife have always been very resilient. We don't like to rely on other people for things and we like to be independent and really take care of our own shit. And it's hard for us to let go and to accept the fact that, you know, we can't control everything in this world and that we can't control certain outcomes and that eventually someday we may need to rely on the, the generosity.

of others in our lives to help us along the way. And that's just a hard pill to swallow for both of us, in all honesty. And I'm not talking for her, but this is just something that we know about each other.

And so that's kind of where I'm at. I just wanted to share a little bit of where the mindset's at and just this has been a difficult year. It feels like every year I'm always saying like, can't wait for the new year to roll in. We'll go ahead and restart then. I don't think that's really going to happen. There's nothing that's different between December 31st and January 1st of this upcoming year. But that's just like a mindset.

shift that people typically will try to put into place. And I guess I'm just putting this out there to to be empathetic, to to show you guys where I'm at and to hopefully, you know, encourage you if you're also having a difficult year, if you feel like things are getting harder and harder and that you're never able to like truly catch up in life, that there's always the next thing that's coming around. You just took care of something else. Something's got off your plate.

but then you have 10 other things that come onto your plate. I'm right there with you. I think a lot of people are right there with you. We do a good job of putting up this front, putting up this facade that everything's fine, that we're doing well, and that there's no issues. And that's fine because that's what society is. You don't want a bunch of people that are like depressed or fucking anxious all the time. They can't function in a normal society. You have to put a certain facade up when you're out in society. But that doesn't mean that you have to have this facade up.

all the time. You don't have to constantly have all your shit together. There are people out there who care about you that want to know what's going on underneath and want to help you process and move through that. So that way you can continue moving forward in life because life's not slowing down. And maybe that's what I'm what I'm really learning is that life is never going to slow down. Life is just going to continue to get faster and faster every year that I'm alive.

It seems like the years go by faster and faster. And I'm not sure if that's because I've got more consciousness of it or just as you get older, the time just, it really has gone. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was turning 21 in college and now I'm going to be turning 37. I've got two kids, got a wife of fuck 12, 13 years now. yeah, life has just been

barreling full speed ahead I don't think that it's ever gonna slow down and so I think the only option that I've got is to try and slow myself down to Realize the good things that I have Relish in them Appreciate them have gratitude for that and then just continue to try as best as I possibly can to leave a good life to Have good kids to teach them to raise them

to have a loving wife, to spend time with my wife, because I'm not going to have, I don't have forever. I've just got till the end of our lives to create the best life that we possibly can, to create the best legacy that we possibly can. And that's where my mindset's going. But I understand if you're not necessarily there, and this isn't like an episode to, like all the other people out there, like just be gratitude and just have gratitude for life and.

love everyone and realize that you're never gonna get these moments back. That's a good, those are good things to try to strive towards. And I'm here.

advocating for those things as well. think that we should try to move towards that. But at the same time, I also feel the other side of that. Right. I also feel the overwhelm and the regret and the shame and just the inability to to get out of your own head sometimes. Like there's so many things going on and to just focus on the one side. The positives is it's not necessarily human. We are

full of different emotions constantly. You're going to have the good and the bad. And if you completely shun the bad or the hard, it's not good for you as a person. And so I'm here. I see that everything is going on, not just with me. I used to just think that it was just me, but I'm very confident that there's a lot of you out there that are also struggling. You've got your own shit going on. There's things going on. Even if you feel like you're doing great, you're crushing it.

making a ton of money. Your kids are absolutely perfect. They're Ivy League kids already when they're three years old. Like that's great that I'm not here to come down on anyone who feels like their life is going absolutely amazing. That's great. You're at a different point in your life than someone like me right now, or at least how I feel like I'm doing. And yeah, I see both sides of it. And I just wanted to make sure that I acknowledge that I'm going through

some of this stuff right now and if you're going through it too, like I'm right there with you going through the mud and I'm going to continue to put out this podcast every week. I might take a little break during the holidays just because it's going to be difficult with, you know, family coming in town and any travel that we may do all that shit. So, but I'm going to consistently try to put these podcasts out. I really hope that they, they benefit you in some way, shape or form and that

You know, like I said, I'm right there along the road with you, walking through the shit, walking through the muck, trying to strive towards a better, a better life, having a good life, not necessarily a better life. Like your life is shit, but just constantly striving to make the life that you have the best that it could possibly be. And that's going to be it for today. Just kind of a short spitball episode. Like I said,

I wanted to get something out for consistency and next week you'll start seeing clips on Instagram here pretty soon for my conversation with Meyer over here for the dads. I think it's a good one and I really appreciated him popping on the podcast and talking with me. So that will do it for today. I hope everyone has a good one.