Am I Relying Too Much on ChatGPT for Connection?
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Am I outsourcing too much of my connection to chat GPT? I just was having this conversation with a couple of scholars. If you're listening to this and you just rolled your eyes, you are wrong. That means you are not engaging with this technology enough because it is frighteningly powerful. What's up? What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

Taking your call about relationships and mental and emotional health and trying to figure out what in the world is going on in this crazy place we've all found ourselves in globally and neighborhoodly and all the stuff.

I promise this, man. I'll sit with you and we'll figure out what's the next right move. If you want to be on the show, go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. All over the globe. We take calls from all over the place and we will change your name and your location. We'd love to have you on. Let's go to Raleigh, North Carolina and talk to Jacob. What's up, Jacob? What's up, brother?

Hey, man, how's it going? Doing all right, dude. So, uh, I guess my question is, I'll just kind of dig after that, but my question is, am I outsourcing too much of my connection to ChatGPT? I just did. I just was having this conversation and with a couple of, uh,

uh scholars man like wild that this the timing of this is pretty fortuitous tell me tell me about what you're experiencing oh by the way if you're listening to this and you just rolled your eyes you are wrong that means you are not engaging with this technology enough because it is frighteningly powerful

And just if that's just is what it is. And if you're like, oh, my gosh, you are incorrect. You're not either not using the right models or you are not using the right programs. I had a run in with it the other night, Jacob. And I took my headphones off. I write in a really dark place up in my house. Like I have a little office where I write. And I took my headphones off and I thought, oh, no.

Like I had that thought. So tell me, and that was just an experience that I was using with a, I use a professional version of chat dbt to help me think through things, but go, go, go ahead. Tell me what you've been experiencing. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I also want to say I've read both of your books. So I think that the fact that this question even popped into my head very much has a lot to do with that just because I know connection is so important. So yeah, gosh, I've had probably the hardest year of my life, uh,

Um, I'm on the tail end of a divorce. Uh, my ex-wife, um, cheated on me a couple different times over the last few years. I had tried to do the whole, you know, buildings burned to the ground. Let's flip the lights on. Let's, uh, get back to the table and, you know, work on this. We got into counseling for a couple of years together. Um, honestly, I

I thought we were doing so much better. Even our community around us could just tell that we were flying higher than we ever did. And she got a new job. And it wasn't even six months later that I found out that she started cheating on me with some other guy that she had known for just a couple months at her work. It was crazy. We had two little girls. Hold on, hold on, hold on. That's not crazy. That sucks. That sucks.

It does. Hold on. Don't laugh past it. Don't laugh past it. That's what you do. That's not supposed to be that way. It's not. And while y'all go into therapy, you were doing better. She wasn't. Not her. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and, you know, I think that I had at the very beginning of our marriage, um, and I was honest with her before we ever got married, that I had struggled with pornography, uh, basically my entire teenage life. And we got married straight out of high school, by the way, um, married for 10 years. And so I struggled with that at the beginning. Um, and,

And by the time we had made it to counseling after she cheated on me the first time with an ex-boyfriend, um...

Man, my eyes got opened to the world. You talk about being dead in your skin. That's how I felt. So I felt like I woke up and I was like, man, life is around me. This is crazy. And I just started living. And you're right. I don't think she ever did. And I thought...

Her getting this dream job that she always wanted. I saw that light in her eyes and I'm like, this is it. She's finally seeing what, anyways, all that to be said, um, it worked out the way that it worked out. So I am now a full single time, a full time single dad, uh,

She sees the girls maybe once a week, that kind of a thing. So I'm doing the whole school thing. I work from home, so I'm very lonely. How old is she? I mean, how old is your daughters? Yeah, my seven and five. What kind of mom doesn't want to be around her kids?

She'd say that she does want to be around her kids. No, she doesn't. Behavior's a language, dude. She doesn't. She didn't even see them on Mother's Day. I mean, I just took another call just a minute ago about a dad that didn't want to be around his kid. I cannot wrap my head around it. I can't. But it is what it is. It's a futile quest to figure out what's going on in people's hearts and minds, but it is what it is. Yeah.

Jeez, man. I'm sorry. So you're stuck at home. You have no adults in your life. You got two little girls that you're trying to protect from what I think is one of the most caustic experiences, which is a parent, particularly for young girls, their mother saying, I'd rather not be around you. And then you stumble into fricking Chad GBT.

Yeah, and that's where I've, I guess, found myself. I have friends. I have siblings that I do talk to, but it's those nights where it's just real lonely. And I'm a writer. I process – I like to just process through journaling, and it's a journal that talks back to you. That's right.

And, yeah, I kind of started it as, I guess, a joke. Like, I just wonder what it will say. But then it got to this point where I'm like, dang, like, I really feel like I am getting something from this. And that's when it started to scare me. I was like, maybe this isn't a good thing. I wanted your thoughts on that. Yeah, dude. I mean, I got a lot of thoughts on it and I've got personal experience with it. So I have a rule.

I refuse to use Chad GPT to do things for me when it comes to writing, when it comes to – like I've got not colleagues in this building but colleagues across the country that just dump some ideas in and say – like basically write me a blog, write me a book. Yeah, I don't like that. I refuse to do that because I use writing –

I use hard conversations with friends of mine that have different opinions as ways and different experiences, different expertises as a way to sharpen what I actually think and believe about something, right? The thing that freaked me out. So I'm able to, and for those of you listening, I'm able to sit down and say, I had this idea about anxiety. Sigmund Freud, what do you think about this?

I'm interested in a dialogue with me and Sigmund Freud and Rollo May and Erwin Yalom, three godfathers of modern psychology, all a little bit different. What do y'all think about my ideas? And it will talk to me in their voice. But it also, it doesn't just give me information. It says, ooh, that's a nice idea. I hadn't thought of that before. Let me think about that for a second. And then it will say, well, what do you think about this?

And it's the attenuating words that made me take my headphones off. Because what has happened over the last decade is we've outsourced all of our talking to text messages and direct messages and emails. And so we've primed our bodies for some sort of reciprocal interaction. We call it connecting, but we're not. We're just communicating with an electronic medium in between us.

And now we have an electronic medium that is smarter than any group of people who's ever lived, who remembers every single solitary keystroke we have, that learns over time what words we respond to better, like, ooh, well done, or that's a great idea, hadn't thought of that. And in your case, you chased a ghost for a decade and you called that ghost your wife. And she never said anything.

That's a really good idea. I hadn't considered that. Yeah. She never said that. So here's what this is, and I'm grappling with this in real time, okay? Here's in the mental health space. The studies are already pouring in. Grok and Chet GPT and I think even Anthropic, I have to go back and see. Anthropic may be a company, whether it's, they can listen to just a few minutes of vocal tone and make a clinical diagnosis.

This person is clinically depressed. We can tell by their voice. They can do medical diagnostic and even mental health diagnostic. You punch in, here's what I'm experiencing, here's what I'm feeling, and they're better than people at making a clinical diagnosis, at giving you a label. And so as a mental health guy, I'm instantly going, oh my gosh.

Look what we did to ourselves, mental health world. We, instead of focusing on sitting with hurting people, we focused on getting the label right. Well, now something can label better than us and faster than us and more efficiently than us. And in your case, you're a writer. The worst part of writing is that flashing cursor. The second worst part of writing is hitting send on a draft and waiting for that other reader to read it and write you back.

Yeah. And now you get that instantly. And this one likes you, right? Yep. Okay. Here's what a interface with chat GPT is. It is intellectual pornography. Yikes. It's the exact same thing you were getting from looking at naked people and feeling sexualized. Now you are interfacing with a robot and you're feeling intellectualized.

Jeez, that makes me feel icky. It does. I mean, literally, that's why I took my headphones off and had a moment of existential dread and both, oh, this thing is real, real powerful. Yeah. And so here's, I guess what I would say this, connection is never information. Connection is presence, which is biology. We use information as a way to grease the wheels of sitting on somebody else's presence.

We use the question, hey, what do you think about as a way to sit with somebody else? But the answer to that question is never the point. The point is that we're sitting with each other. Seeing professional actors and actresses do all kind of acrobatic sexual things that are just bananas and wild and whatever, that looks enticing and appealing, and it is. It actually gets many of the same, if not all the same chemicals going, sometimes in far excess of what happens in reality. And...

There's something about sleeping with the same person and going through your skinny phase and your fat phase and the, ugh, I got to ration the lights off. And the, I don't feel pretty, but I still am going to, I still think you're pretty. And I don't feel handsome, but I still think you're handsome. And you wake up 35 years later and you are a entity. We are one. Yeah. Right? And so my fear is when I did my first big will, right?

Not my fear. This is 100% going to happen. When I did my first will, I sat down. I did it for a class, for a law class. I had the opportunity to work with the best, the number one wills and estates guy on the planet, Jerry Beyer. And he sat down and said, I'll do your will, but you're going to do it for my class. Nice. What I realized is the most important thing, I needed to get that piece of paper so that if I drop dead...

my, the courts would know what to do with my estate. My wife and kids would be taken care of, right? But right underneath that, the most important part of the will was me sitting down and making it and having to sit with somebody else and them watch me cry when I had to tell them who I want my kids to go to if I die and me to think through what song do I want played at my funeral? And I didn't skip that. I went right through it.

And on the other end of that experience, of that awkward, uncomfortable human experience, I was more ready to face death in a strange way. I felt more, this sounds cheesy, I felt more alive. I'm going to go be present with my kids because there will be a day when I'm not with them. Yeah. And if I just chat GPT to Will, which you can do.

Make me a will. And if it's not right now, in the next six months, there will be a company that will just do an interface with your will and will crank it up for you. And it will be legally binding. You skip the experience of what it feels like to come face-to-face with the question, what's going to happen when you're gone because you will be gone? All that to say is, I think ChatGPT, I think all these things are amazing technologies. And when it comes to doing research for my writing, I'm writing a new book right now. I'm starting the process.

Getting access to the scholarly info is saving me months of time. But the point for me writing a book is not just cranking out a book and sell another book. That's not why I write books. I sit down and write so that I can really laser focus and sharpen what I think about a thing. And then I want that experience to people to be able to participate in that experience. That make sense? Yeah, love that. So interface with ChatGPT. It will make you a better writer. It just will.

Oh, I've, and truthfully it has, I write songs. I don't, I don't write books. I write songs. I've, I've written without Chachi PT's help. Cause I'm like you, I've written like 34 songs in just the last five months after all of this, which is crazy to me. But, uh, I'll throw, I'll throw this one out there real quick. Hold on. Hold on. Can I click on that? Sorry. Yeah. If you rob yourself of the scary awkwardness of playing those songs in front of a group of other people,

you're robbing yourself of the magic of being an artist. Yeah. Actually, I've been on that fence to where I'm thinking about putting out some stuff finally instead of just putting it into a computer screen. Not just putting it out. Sitting in a room with people and playing it. Gosh. You know what I've started doing? This is going to sound crazy, and I'm exactly with you. Next week, I'll do two events.

One in front of 2,500 people on a stage and I think one in front of 1,000 people in two different states. Nice. Okay? I am consistently putting myself on a stage in front of 100 people in a dimly lit comedy club because one is a performance and one is being with people. One is a song in a day. It's a big theatrical thing. It's a huge stage, big lights, big sound, and the other is just a quiet room and a single microphone and them saying, I'm having a bad day. Will you help me laugh?

And I am intentionally both using the magic that is the AI thing that's coming and nobody is grasping how quick this is coming and how transformative it is. It's going to ask us the question, what does it actually mean to be human? And I'm also intentionally trying to find places where I'm awkward and uncomfortable because that is the beauty of being a human being. That's the thing that computer can't take away.

I will say, you know, I've been on, because of everything that you teach and preach, I got uncomfortable and started volunteering locally doing just like some outdoor parks and recreation stuff, which I'd never done before. And it's really, really awkward. But yeah, so I am doing those things. Like I said, it's just those nighttime moments where it's, you know, you're just laying in bed alone and I've not been alone really my entire life. So here's the deal. Just got to find a new outlet. You'll never heal? No.

If you don't go through the dark night of being alone, because then you'll never have to fully feel the impact of this divorce. You'll never have to fully feel the impact of that girl you love since high school literally left you and her girls. And you'll never have to fully wrestle with, how did I miss that? Yeah. You'll never have to fully wrestle with,

How am I going to trust again? Because the greatest gift I can give my girls next is a dad who knows how to love and laugh and have joy again. I hate you. You know what I'm saying? But if you don't do that, then Chad GPT is pornography. It's a Xanax. It's a way to not feel. And it's a substitute for the real thing. Yeah.

And so I think the bravest call in the coming century is a – it's this way. It's this. For all of human history, scarcity when it came to food and water was the thing. So our entire body is attuned to find food and eat it when you get it. Now –

We've had to switch and we have to say, hey, now the new game in the 21st century is the new thing we have to do to stay alive and not die early is to not eat so much because it's everywhere. Right. Okay. Similarly, for all of human history, you couldn't avoid these things. You couldn't avoid going through somebody's father to be with their daughter. You couldn't avoid getting stared down by your romantic interest sisters. Right.

Okay. Now you can. Now I can just talk to a computer. I can just get a will. I don't have to think about death. I can just get the paper. I don't have to think about, I don't have to sit and be awkward with a car dealer. I can just get the thing delivered to my house and move on with my day. And now I think the future is, do you know what? I can write songs here. I can use this machine to help me write songs. It will critique the songs and I can just get in a feedback loop. And slowly I erode the thing that makes me who I am in the first place, which is courage.

I'm going to go get in a room of 10 people and play three of these songs. God, I hope they love them. I'm not going to sleep for three days. Then I'm going to play them and I'm going to be like, did you like it? Did you like it? What'd you think? I'm going to go home and have a vulnerability hangover. That is the good stuff. That's the good stuff. That sounds like a good next step. Will you do me another favor? Yeah. When you're out there volunteering, which dude, I'm so freaking proud of you. And if you bring your daughters with you, your extra gangster, while you're out there volunteering,

Keep your eyes open because that's where you may see that other single mom out there trying to figure out her next step too. And that, my friend, is how I hope it happens for you. Not a swipe right, but a, oh, you're here too? That, my friend, is being human. Thanks for the call, my brother. Close the laptop screen, man. Close the laptop screen.

All right, coming up, a woman asks if it's ever okay to not be the top priority in her relationship. Be right back. All right, let's talk about cozy earth. There isn't much that's hotter in the world or muggier in the world than summers growing up in Houston. But I got to admit, living in middle Tennessee is giving Houston a run for its money. I

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Well, as you explained, I'm in a dilemma of do I accept not being the top priority? It's a tricky, you know, you ask that question to any friend and of course the immediate response is no. But I'm dating a guy who has kids from a previous marriage.

And they are his top priority, which I encourage, respect, all of that. But how much do I accept in not being that top priority? Tell me what top priority is existentially loaded. That's a heavy way to phrase that. Give me some examples that have come up where you have been...

moved from perch as girlfriend as the chief woman in his life to second or third or fourth tier okay so um we're both very busy so schedules are tricky so already time is limited and there was an instance before he was going on a work trip that we had planned to do dinner before and

That same evening, he ended up having to help shuttle one of the kids, which, again, I fully support that and want to encourage that. I think he's a wonderful dad. He's always there for them. But then my plans with him are always the first to get canceled. How old are these kids? They are 10, 8, and 6. Okay.

That's a tough age. There's a lot going on in those ages, right? Yeah. There's always a dentist appointment or a doctor appointment or a ball game or a theater thing. Like, there's a lot going on. Yeah. Underneath this question, what is his relationship like with his ex-wife? Great. I mean, they co-parent extremely well, which is, you know, she had asked if he would assist with that, and he said absolutely and clearly dropped everything to go do it. So is it...

That you're second priority to her. Because the kids aren't the problem here. In that situation that you just put out there, the kids needed a ride, but mom didn't or couldn't or had something else pop up. And so he's not bailing the kids out. He's bailing her out. Sure. I mean, so, oh, sorry, go ahead. You go ahead, go ahead.

So another example was when I was on the road and our schedules weren't matching up, I had called to touch base when I had like an hour gap. And his response was that he was just going to... Or he texted back, which is also another thing. But he texted back that he was going to just hang out with his kids because that was his evening with them. Because I understand that time is also limited. But...

That one doesn't involve the mom. So that one is just, you know, he was choosing them over the quick connection with me. And I'm never going to ask him to not hang out with them or not spend time with them. But those are the things that if kids weren't involved, I wouldn't be accepting this behavior. Sure. Yeah, I...

It feels to me like there's a lot going on here because he can, he can quote unquote, Hey, I want to be spending time with my kids, but anybody can pick up a phone call real quick and say, Hey, what's up? Hope you had a great day. Doing good. Awesome. I got the kids. So love you. Take care. Have a great, great, great night. Anybody can do that. So him choosing not to do that is not about the kids. He's using the kids in that process to not pick up the phone.

Mm-hmm. And maybe there's a conversation you don't know about between him and his ex. It's like, hey, no other people yet. Or who knows? Who knows? I just made that up. But that's silly. And also, he bailed out his ex. If they chose to get divorced and they chose to have custody arrangements and they chose to—the kids stay here one week and here the other week or here three days a week or whatever—

then if I can't pick them up, then it's my job to hire somebody or to call a friend or whatever. And it's easy just to call my ex. But we got divorced. We legally and spiritually separated. Right. And the kids become a proxy. So in one situation, the kids are becoming the proxy that he didn't really want to talk to you.

Mm-hmm. In another one, the kids are the proxy. Like he's kind of bailing her out at the expense of the plans y'all made together. Here's the frustrating reality for you. None of that matters. What matters is what do you want in a relationship? Do you have the courage to be very clear about what that is?

And will you sit down and give him a roadmap of what that looks like from his heart to yours, from his head to yours? And then the scariest thing is, will he say, I can't do that right now? That's what it feels like y'all are avoiding. Well, I did after the canceled dinner plans, I did tell him,

I would appreciate maybe even just being brought into the conversation about that being the plan switch, that maybe that would help better than just being told I'm off the calendar, you know, rather than saying, hey, this has come up. Could we reschedule? Could we, you know, making it a conversation rather than just being told that we're no longer doing what we said we were going to. Yeah.

And he's very receptive to that. I mean, he acknowledges that he, you know, and apologizes that that's how he made me feel. Like he doesn't intend to do that. But I could see this replaying over and over again next time something comes up. Correct. How long ago was this divorce? I think like three years. Okay. Or I guess separated three. Okay.

So I'm wondering if he has a lot of parents separate and they have a tremendous amount of guilt in their own chest and they respond to every, my kids make 50 requests a minute when I'm at home. Hey dad, can I have a snack? Can we go fishing? Can I have a party? Are you going to get a new truck? Let's get a new house. Like it's always that. But if I'm operating out of a sense of guilt that I'm just going to, I want to jump as high as I can whenever they call. Yes. That's,

I think that's it. Okay. Maybe have that conversation. I love you and I've seen this in you. I feel like you're walking around feeling guilty for your ex, feeling guilty for your kids, feeling guilty for everything. Feeling guilty when I say, hey, I want to be a part of... When you cancel a plan for me, you feel guilty about that too? I feel like you're just walking around guilty and it's hard to anchor into somebody who's just feeling guilty all the time. Maybe. And then how do you...

I mean, how, I guess then he has to work through that. That's it. You can't solve that. You just have to decide, do I want to date somebody who's wrestling with that? But yes, it is right. He's got, yeah, it's very tricky. It's very, very tricky. Especially if you like everything about him. And it might be that the most attractive thing about him is his dedication to his kids. Yeah. In a world where dads just leave at the drop of a hat.

Because they're weak and they're cowards and they're whiners. Like, they just leave. How amazing is it to see a good man who even apologizes? God. I mean, what kind of guy is this, right? And also, it's right for him, if he makes a commitment to his children, that you come behind that commitment. They're just, they're little bitty.

If they were 22, I would be having a different conversation. Right. And have you, have you ever been married before? No. Have you ever had, do you have any kids of your own? No. Okay. So it's a lot. Well, it's a lot, but hear me say my marriage is pretty dang good. It's not perfect by a hundred miles, but it's pretty good. The conversation you and him are having right now, my wife and I have, and we only have two kids.

So being in a relationship when you have three young ones running around is just it stress tests the relationship. Even if you have a great marriage, it's just hard. You though get to decide, do I want to be in this? Hey, we got dinner plans. Well, suddenly the kids sick plans are off. I got to go home. Oh man, that sucks. I had a whole thing planned. That's my life.

Or, hey, we got this thing going on this weekend that's cool. Hey, somebody just called and wants me to fly out and speak at their business. They're going to pay this. Well, you have to go, but that sucks, right? That's our life right now.

So I don't even know that it's you throw divorce on there and you throw him starving for oxygen because he wants to just hold his babies every night before he goes to bed. He can't legally. And so you throw that stress on top of just the stress of being with somebody who's got three young kids, even in the best of marriages. It's hard. It's a mess.

So it's a daily, weekly, monthly, but especially a daily negotiation of what does today look like. And sometimes it is you choosing, I'm not going to get my feelings hurt when he just cancels plans to go grab his kids. That's just how that works when you have little kids. Hey, somebody just got sick. I got to cancel. That's me and my wife, right? And also have the conversation about the guilt. Have a conversation about these other things. I think it's worth investing in. But thank you so, so, so much for the call. Really appreciate it.

Let me know how it goes. Let me know what you decide. Because I'm fascinated to hear what a single woman who's opting into a crazy life with three little ones, how that even goes. When we come back, a man wonders when to share his infertility challenges in a relationship.

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all out of things to say. If you're ready to find some peace in the chaos and some purpose in your day, check out Halo. Plus, right now, when you sign up at halo.com slash Deloney, you get three months for free. Again, that's Halo, H-A-L-L-O-W dot com slash Deloney for three months for free. Columbus, Ohio. Let's talk to Michael. What's up, Michael? Hey, Dr. John. How are you doing? I'm good, brother. What's up with you, man?

So I had cancer about three years ago, and I'm in remission now. And then some of the treatment has left me unable to have my own kids. Yeah. And I just don't know, as I get back into the dating world, when the best time to bring that up or how to bring that up is. The very first date. I'm totally kidding. Don't do that. Don't do that. It'd be awesome. Hey, Michael, I can't have kids. Yeah, don't do that. Tell me what the...

What the fear of that, like there's fear underneath that question. What's your fear? I guess if like it goes, like everything's going well, and then I feel like that could just be something that torpedoes everything. And then like it's out of my control. So it's like even if I have a great connection with someone that could just ruin it. So let me, you have this big fear.

This big neon sign in front of you, okay? And it's easy to point at that neon sign, but let me get underneath that sign, okay? The main question that every human being on planet Earth wants answered is, now that you know all of me, do you still love me? And so what I want to tell you is, man, you survived cancer.

You're strong. You're resilient. You got to peer over the other edge, right? Over the edge of not even being here anymore. Scary stuff. That makes you a pretty amazing guy. And I can't have kids. That's a fact about me. It's not a character indictment. That's not a character flaw. That's just a fact. I am 5'8". I only date tall guys. Well, I'm amazing and I'm 5'8". You get to opt in or out of this.

I've been married before. I'm an amazing woman. And I was with an abusive guy. I'm still amazing. I'm still a great person. And you get to choose. That deeper question is, now that you know me, do you still love me? And I guess I want to share with you that I've been married for 23 years now. I still ask that question.

And so I think it's being comfortable with learning to be in your own skin enough to say, this is who I am, man. I'm not going to apologize for it. I didn't do anything wrong. In fact, I'm a survivor and I'm pretty dang strong now. But this is a fact about me. And if somebody opts out of that, then they opt out. And yes, I can break your heart and be sad and all that. But you're asking the question as though if they find out that you were committed a bunch of felonies one time, you're in jail, but I promise, I promise, I promise I'm different.

I don't want you to put yourself in that bucket. Does that ring true? Yeah. All right, I threw a lot at you. Talk back to me. You got quiet on me. Yeah, just processing it all. Okay. Yeah, that's, like I've shared it with some of my friends. They've kind of said the same thing, but it's just hard to,

come to grasp with it still. Can I, can I, yeah. Can I poke on that a little bit? Is that okay? Yeah. I think you're the one that hasn't grieved. I won't be able to have kids. You don't like that about you. And you're wondering how in bloody hell could another person still love me when I'm not okay with me? Yeah. Did you want to have kids? Yeah.

How many? Like when you just like close your eyes and have a picture of you with gray hair kind of thinning on top. How many kids are sitting around that Thanksgiving table? Like four. Okay. I can feel it inside my chest. Like it's slowly dropping into my guts. I'm sorry, man. Thanks. That breaks my heart for you. Can I tell you something crazy to do? Yeah. Would you make up some imaginary names for those four kids and write them all a letter? You can just write one. Yeah, I can do that.

And just say, hey, I'm not going to get to meet you, but just know I would have been a great, great, great dad. And I might adopt kids one day. I might be the best foster parent you've ever seen in your life. But I wanted to meet you guys, and I'm not going to get to meet you. I got sick. And if you're a real gangster, which I don't know if I would be, but you're stronger than me. I mean, you went through cancer treatments. You might get a couple of buddies and just say, this is going to be the weirdest thing I've done, but I'm going to read this out loud. I got to share this with other people. Yeah.

It's hard to ask somebody else to love us when we really think there's a thing about us that's unlovable. Yeah. And I don't think this makes you unlovable, but it does break my heart for you because this is a tragedy for you. It's been hard. Yeah. Will you make me a promise in your grief? Put some guardrails on your grief. And I know that sounds bananas and nobody's probably ever told you that before, but make a commitment to not drink a lot.

And make a commitment to call somebody if you get sad. And make a commitment to not go down some pornography rabbit hole or some online gambling rabbit hole. Just make a commitment to head directly into the middle of this hurt. Acknowledge those four kids that won't ever be at that kitchen table. And then make space for maybe I'm going to adopt someday. I'm going to find some woman who's just all in on me and wants to build a life with me. And by the way, not if, but you will. You'll find that person. Yeah.

And you'll say, I can't have my own biological kids. And here, can I tell you how I know this? One of my closest friends on the planet, a couple, he had cancer. He can't have kids. And they've become, they are, they work at a children's ranch. They take care of young people. And they are astounding foster parents. And both of them get sad every once in a while about the bio kid thing. All of it's true. Yeah.

But my buddy, like most of the men in my life, married way over his skis. So I'm not just blowing smoke at you. I know this to be true because these people are in my life and I love them. And they're extraordinary. And I can tell you that I don't get an opportunity very often to... That's not true. I do, but not as much as I would like. I don't get the opportunity to talk to...

Like brave, brave men like you. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to do that. You're welcome. Thanks for everything. What's your next move, brother? I'll probably write that letter like you suggested and then get ahold of some of my closest friends. And announce to them that you're going to do something weird, okay? Yeah. They'll probably expect it. Don't let them come over and just think y'all are singing karaoke or something or playing Fortnite and all of a sudden you're like, I'm going to read it.

A letter to four kids that don't exist. The number one voice on the planet, I think, when it comes to grieving is David Kessler. One of his cornerstone lines is grief demands a witness. The only way your body can metabolize it is in the presence of other people. And so there's something about feeling it, for real feeling it. Like it's a loss and sharing that loss with other people. And when you add one quick thing to that letter at the end,

Make sure you let those four ghosts, those four kids that we're going to be that aren't, make sure you let them know what kind of awesome guy you're going to be moving forward. Because you're still going to be that balding, gray-haired, 50- or 60-year-old man. Give them a little glimpse into what that guy's life might look like, who you're going to become. Okay. Cool? Yep. It's been a high honor talking to you, my brother. Thank you so much for the call. I'm really, really grateful for you.

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All right, we're back. We got an Am I the Problem, Kelly 2.0. Yes, Macy from Orlando, Florida. Let's do real quick. Let's do John from Nashville. John from Nashville asks, John from Nashville may be drinking. John from Nashville asks if I record an episode.

And the guy in charge of all of the cameras and lighting, if he doesn't hit record and we have to burn everything, am I the problem or is he the problem? Nathan Keeler. No, not at all. I'm the problem. I messed up. Now I feel bad because you like take ownership because you're like a good guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Go to the other. Am I the problem? Kelly 2.0.

All right. Macy from Orlando, Florida writes, my husband and I have caught my mom in lies regarding what she feeds our two-year-old daughter. She's given her all the food we don't allow, especially ultra-processed sugary foods. She overall has been a big help with our busy lives, but we are now seeing our daughter hide things from us and being sneaky. Am I wrong for not letting my mom watch or stay alone with our daughter anymore? Well, I got hemorrhoids now.

Thanks for this question. Just inside, wanted out on this one. Oh, geez. Here's the thing. I'm all about eating healthy. I guess there's just context here. Let your kid's grandparent spoil your kid for crying out loud. I know it's cool to be this over-the-top, like, I will never... Dude, I want my parents to spoil my kids. I want somebody to be like,

I know you'll never eat a Kit Kat in your house. I got you. I want that. And I don't like that. I don't give them Kit Kats, but I kind of like that they have some understanding that moderation and fun and whatever is good. I'm guessing that they are hiding things, not just because of the food, but because of the environment of the house, which is there are rigid, this never is inflexible ever. And the kids are learning at a very young age.

Whoa. Whoa. So that'd be my guess. If on the other hand, if your kids have food allergies, if you have some very strong moral or religious or whatever convictions about food and your mom was lying to you, then she's probably gonna lie about other things about what they're watching about how much time they're on screens. And so I think, yes, you're right to have some concerns there. I like to always ask myself, am I putting people in a position where they have to lie to me? I want to take ownership of that first and say, okay,

Am I being unreasonable in my request for things? And then am I playing 20 questions or playing gotcha to try to figure it out? If I'm creating an environment where I'm basically encouraging someone to lie to me, that's on me. If somebody is consciously listening to my values and the things that are important to me and going around and then lying to me, then yes, I'm going to protect my kids. That's what I would say. So I need more context to say who's the problem here, but that's just my unfiltered opinion on that. What do you think? Who's the problem there, Kelly?

This is hard. I grew up with an almond mom. What's an almond mom? A mom that is very vocal of like foods that you should and should not eat. So like I don't eat like fettuccine Alfredo because I was told it was really bad for me. Gotcha. It is delicious. I'll have to try it. It gives me the GAS, but it is delicious. I think this is like all within moderation. Like I think like

Like when you go to grandma's house, like you're obviously going to eat cake and like have fun and like you're building those memories. But I think like there's a proper way to teach your kids about food. And when it's just restrict, restrict, of course, they're going to be hiding it and indulging in it. And so I think it's how do you approach the conversation of like, yes, and. Yeah, I love that. And if you're, I guess for all parents, be very clear about the hills you're going to die on. Because if you die on every hill, then you're,

Either A, nobody will watch your kids, nobody will want to be in your life, or everyone's going to be just telling you what you want to hear. So here's in my house, we eat healthy almost all the time. And I don't ever, I grew up, I had locks on the pantry when I was a kid.

There are locks on the pantry. I was maniacal about eating, right? But there are locks on the pantry. I don't want my kids to have that environment. I want them to know there's some candy up there and one a week is what we do in this house. That's who we are. So it's not never, never, never, never. And,

And also when I pull my wrappers out of my pockets, my kids can see, they know, oh, dad's had a crazy day. Right. Just like Kelly 1.0 can just like all like my manager, everybody knows like, oh, if John's eating candy, like, oh, he's tired or he's not doing well. Right. I, my kids can see that. Right. And so I want them to know that, but here's a hill I will die on. If you hand my kid, um, an un, un, an unobstructed cell phone,

They're not coming to your house. Friends, I don't care who you are, right? If you just hand my kid like, ah, it's just pornography. It's fine. Your parents are overdramatic. They were never going to. So, but there is a hill we will die on. There's one or two hills. If you are, um, if you're a racist idiot, my kid's not going to come to your house. I won't have them there because I don't want them in that world.

So there's a couple of hills I'll die on, but would you down every hill? Just cheese Louise. And so find some things that your parents can spoil your kids on. We're going to stay up too late. We're going to have pizza. We're going to whatever those things are. And you teach your kids not always, but sometimes. Right. And yeah, if it's just restrict, restrict, restrict, restrict human nature is I will find a way around that because I want to know what that is. And that it doesn't mean everything, everything, everything. Some boundaries are good.

No, dude. Still. This episode is brought to you by Preparation H. Because, geez louise. Love you guys. Candy's okay. Sometimes. Bye.