R.O.F.L. (Reach Out For Love)

Basma and Wes delve into a wide-ranging discussion touching on anime conventions, music festivals, fast food economics, and the complexities of personal relationships. From setting boundaries to confronting toxic behavior, they explore the challenges of growth and communication in navigating friendships and self-improvement. With candid anecdotes and insightful reflections, they offer listeners a candid glimpse into their own journeys of maturity and understanding.

What is R.O.F.L. (Reach Out For Love)?

with Basma Awada

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You're listening to local programming produced in KU NV studios.

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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jas and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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What's up everybody? Welcome to our

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show about motivation and being yourself. That's right. What does R O L?

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Reach out for love show about motivation and love being yourself being yourself. Be yourself.

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Let's find out.

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What's up today? Hold on. We got some cool events that we went to. Hello. Wesley has been to a cool

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show. Yeah, I have been to a convention. Yeah. So the convention I went to is an anime convention. Another one. They actually have these a lot more often. We have a lot of them in Vegas. I didn't know they're popular because this past weekend that just passed was Sumi Khan because I had friends out. I had friends that went to that.

Unknown Speaker 1:08
And they had a great time so shout out my friends. Jinx and Mallanna and I think their friend that they went with Abby

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excellent job on the on the on the fits you guys.

Unknown Speaker 1:20
My very talented friends, so I'm always happy to shout them out. I'm actually going to I'm looking into cosplaying. Yeah, I think it'll be cool. I'm it's fun. Oh, by the way, guys, Wesley and I are wearing two beanies. Oh, yes. One each, not each of us wearing

Unknown Speaker 1:35
beanies with different like T shirts matching. My mind is not a t shirt matching. Backpack. little backpack? Yeah, but I love it. I think that the second he saw me he was like, let me put on mine. Yeah, no, seriously, I did. Because he's wearing a Snorlax beanie with a matching Snorlax backpack. And I happen to wear my pink Big Boy beanie that I've that I've had. Yeah, he spent too much and I did not. I spent 20 bucks on my beanie. Well, that's how much I spent on mine. I thought that was too much for a beanie. No, that's fine. Mine's kind of not like as professional because they kind of like it's like a handmade one. It's even like, yeah, how was the I know that you went to a concert last weekend. How was that? Well, I told you about the Bridge City Center show I went to that was the most recent one. Okay. I think that that one I think that was the one right now. Only thing on on the horizon is me and my best friend are 1,000% totally set for punk rock bowling this year. Oh, that sounds fun. So when is that? It's always Memorial Day weekend. So it goes. It goes from Friday through Monday on Memorial Day weekend. festival days are Saturday, Sunday Monday. club shows are in the evenings

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Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday Monday.

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And me my buddy we got our our festival tickets. We've got our tickets for the after parties like the club shows as they're called for the like a bonus concerts pretty much our our our selection there was like there's every year there's like, like a handful of these after party shows that happen.

Unknown Speaker 3:18
Since the main festival always happens around downtown Las Vegas, you know, like right on the Strip. There's tons of venues for concerts. So not only is there the is there the music festival, but there's always like club shows. And you can get some really crazy like bands and bills put together that you would like would never guess or like wouldn't think possible. But punk rock bowling has been around for Well, I 25 years something like that now, and it's become like this big institution in terms of like, a destination weekend for punk rock fans all across the world. Like literally people come from worldwide to come down here. Yeah, it's actually kind of I love that it's really fun. So when people do when do come in come in from like different states and everything. Yeah, no, it's awesome. I've I've met countries and countries when I've met people from like, all over the world. I've met people in bands that I like, oh my god, I can't believe I just met this person kind of that.

Unknown Speaker 4:12
I actually went to that. That concert. What was it called twice. And a lot of people traveled out traveled in for that one concert because apparently was their only concert in the United States for Hoover twice. That's what the band's called twice. I've never heard of that. I know some band. It's like a girl band. It's not even a band. Actually. They're just like, pop girl pop like a pop group. Yeah, it's like a pop group because I'm gonna leeway that until like the next conversation. Segue that segue I like leeway you like give me someone leeway is like giving them like wiggle room breathing room. It's kind of like probably why I like that. That word. Oh, good. Segue. Segue sounds like Subway. Yeah, subway eat. No, don't do that. i You see now that they're advertising. Subway is like advertising like, six inches per se

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six bucks or whatever? And like in like 10 years ago, it was $5. What long dollars? Yeah. So someone did the math of like, what kind of highway robbery is this? You know, what's that? $5 footlong value versus at six for six, that six inch for six bucks value, right? And someone did the math and was like, for what you're paying? And for what you're getting? That is like a 240% markup or something. Yeah, like I get it. Yeah, it's wild. It's like they used to make money from their drinks and their chips. And they're like cookie Yeah, like that? Well, that's how they used to make they also just like naturally make money because they are like a global company. I say that all the say that there is no, there's no genuine, reasonable excuse for why you would rip people off that much. For fast food, like fast food becoming as expensive as it is. And sadly, speaking of which, the Dollar Tree and the 99 cents. They're gone now. Yeah, I heard something about there's like a super rich person in California who's like trying to essentially keep them alive. But like, kind of like, it sounds like,

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it sounds like one of those of those business plans where Yeah, we're gonna let the we're gonna let the current like closing and the branding die. And then once that dust settles, this person was making it seem like they're gonna, like,

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bring it back, like as quickly as they can, like, under a new name or a new, whatever. But essentially, like Dollar Tree, just just call it tree.

Unknown Speaker 6:36
They're not. Yeah, whatever they call it. Yeah, so like dollar item. And yeah, I was gonna say it's like, it's like if someone actually continues on with the with the like, the spirit of a 99 cent only store, like, Please actually have everything be a toddler. Like, it hasn't been that way since the pandemic, and tick tock on it. That's why and there's Yeah, exactly. And there's no more like people were able, and by people, I mean, like, economists and capitalists, were able to get away with the shrink inflation for so long, in the wake of the pandemic, because old man supply lines are shut down and interrupted, and like, this is why things are costing what they do. And it's like, Okay, now that the dust is settled, and everything is like, quote, unquote, back to normal.

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You can you can stop making egregious money. So yeah, when are you going to stop making literally gross amounts of money hand over fist and like, make sure that everyone can actually afford your products and actually, like, they have enough to live comfortably. They said that their target audience is not going to buy from the dollar store, it's actually higher income people who are actually going to the dollar store. That's what they said, that's the art, the non market audience is not what we expected. Therefore, we're going to go ahead and increase prices. And this is why the economy as a concept, and the way that we talk about it and prioritize it. And the way that it becomes this monolith in our in our American culture, is really upsetting because literally the economy lives and dies and exists on speculation, right? It doesn't it doesn't. It doesn't have any material foundations, especially since we don't have the gold standard anymore. But we really like even then that was like the smallest excuse that we could give for like, How come things are the way they are? And it's an it's just an excuse for there's always actually money to answer. And every year it changes? Yeah, there's like there's never a said stated answer that states limit it. There are some reasons that yeah, that's a part of the reason, right? Why no one will tell you the full like, no one will either tell you the real bottom line, or will tell you like the crux of the information, and they'll talk they'll present whatever they can, without directly talking about the core thing. So it sounds like over leaning towards that, towards that right, your imagined endpoint. And we'll go along with what you infer if it's what suits our interests, but we're not going to confirm or deny the mechanics of whatever it is that we're presenting to you. Yeah, cuz there's business what your I think like you're kind of like, a little bit is this leeway? I'm gonna use the word Oh, my God is not into none of this type of segwaying No, no, I'm not segwaying okay, we're leaving and what I'm trying to say is what you said is like kind of a leeway into the concept of like businesses making up these statistics. Yeah, in order to kind of like influence their Yeah, the market and excuse to influence the market. Yeah, exactly. Oh, hey, if you buy this statistically speaking, yeah, you are gonna get younger or like, whatever. Yeah. Everybody wants this. Well, actually, everybody actually, the economy's doing great. Listen to us, guys. I swear the economy's so great. And why what why

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Are you saying the economy's great what's actually great? Oh, well the stock market's great. Okay cool, but like what about material conditions for regular working class? Blue collar people the literal 99% of people Oh, I guess you should go to eat a subway at Subway for that. Yeah it let them eat cake practically

Unknown Speaker 10:23
because let them eat cake actually would apply to subway in other countries I think Ireland specifically

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subway had to do something about their bread in Ireland because it is so not made of bread and mostly just sugar that their bread in Ireland for subway is classified as cake so when we're saying let them eat cake like haha it's also funny because of classism but it's literally like ghastly because why literally let them eat cake it the bread is cake depending on other part of the country so much as I haven't part of country part of the world. One of my friends is diabetic. Okay, subway, and they say every single time that he likes there, they're like, I don't know what sugar healthy. Now I know now we know because the bread isn't actually like healthy bread. Yeah. Like the the amount like the reason that anything. I've butted heads with this a lot recently. And I mean, it's one of those things that I think it will come off like a curmudgeonly, like a very, like, pessimistic or cynical thing to say. But let me say this. When people ask in good faith and in common sense from like a layperson perspective, how come? How come this thing doesn't make more common sense? How come? Something is so expensive, when it doesn't need to be? How come? Why would they put preservative unnecessary additives and preservatives in food that don't need to be there? Why would they use harmful products? Why would they, like replace certain ingredients with other ones when that's not at all? What their advertising or what you would want to as a reasonable person consume? Why would these people allow these allowances and and these percentages of like, harmful substances to pass for FDA? And typically it boils down to it was cheaper to use a different ingredient or a different process or a different product? And even though it was not the right thing, not healthy? Not right? Not what you want, like common sense, just you would not use this thing. Why? Because it was cheaper, it saves money and saves money. And that's the problem. And more and more and more. Why? Why are safety regulations on? Like safety concerns for Boeing happening right now? Why? Why are all these other industries like failing when it comes to all these like, safety things, inspection things, all these common sense like skeleton of society? So how come this stuff the suddenly we're having these issues, because the people who were in charge and actually cared about like, safety standards, proper procedures, the kind of stuff that like, yeah, the red tape is boring, but like, it also keeps people safe, right keeps things functional, and like long term planning. A lot of those people were pushed out or fired or coerced or ignored or insert, insert your word there in favor of the business people. So you now the interest is money. Now the interest is purely money in the hands of people whose only interest as money instead of before, where those regulations were in place and enforced by people whose job it was to understand why the regulations in place why it's the way to go? Why it's safe. Why it's the standard, you know, I mean, yeah, right. So now look at the produce, look at looking at produce, that's exactly what happened with our produce. Some person was like, oh, everyone's hungry. Let me find a faster and quicker way to set we're going to send out all this food for people right. And now like one avocado is like $5 Like, what do you mean? Yeah, is it so expensive? Like one literally one artichoke? I bought an artichoke yesterday. I really wanted artichoke dollars $5 from Archer. Yeah, I'm like, what? Why is it so expensive? And then the cheap food is the canned food. The cheap food is worse for you. And like I think it's crazy how like the organically grown stuff, the pesticide free stuff, the GMO free stuff, the like, the more all around healthy options are more expensive, expensive. Yeah, I'm like, What do you mean this is how is it more expensive for you to remove the harmful substances? Like I don't understand that explore

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I mean to me not literally, but you have to pay the farmer but like, they're like, they're like shortcoming the farmer. Yeah. You're, you're the farmer deserves more money. Exactly. Like they're short. They're short, they're short selling or like not literally, but like they're, they're shorting the, the farmer for their value and for their labor and for the work that they do. And then also, they're charging more for the stuff that doesn't have the extra stuff in it. That doesn't make sense to me, right? Because like, less that you have to deal with and less that you have to because the unhealthy stuff you don't have to pull. You don't have to go through extra work to pull out the unhealthy stuff. You simply don't use it in the first place. Like my I know, my water that I'm rinsing it with is not taking off the pesticides like eating pesticide. Yeah, tasty, tasty pesticides. Like Wait, maybe I'd prefer to. We're all full of all of Gen Z is full of pesticides and microplastics Tasty, tasty, delicious plastic. Speaking of which, actually, no, this is not even related. Okay, I was gonna say delicious plastic. Okay. I was like, what? Where could you possibly segue from there? I'm usually I'm pretty good. So you are pretty good. That was that was not the one.

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Dying. I was like, Oh, also and then like thinking about the actual thing I wanted to talk about. And then like what you said is like, how do we get from there? Like he can't? That's so funny. Look, it's a little thing I wanted to talk about was if you guys have a friend out there, that you guys were friends with and then you guys are or a relationship that you were in that you were in, that you have to like, let go of a person that you guys are currently dealing with or have had to deal with in the past or might have to deal with in the future? Yes. Some of the biggest and hardest things to do. Do you have to just deal with this sometimes where you just have to be like, just let it go and move on? I think there's I think it's kind of to what you were saying about like, every other thing where you just like had to be the best and it didn't matter. I think a lot of people like where you you don't want to say something to put you in a like a weaker position. You were strictly talking about your power dynamic. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay, you're playing. Okay. I thought you meant like, just raw, like, performance and like getting like highest scores and biggest grades. Oh, no, no, no, I was never come. You know, it's weird. Never competitive with especially with my friends. But like, I've had people in my life that will come in and think, Oh, you're competitive? Yeah. So you must be competitive in every everything. No, yeah, I'm not. I swear. I'm just competitive in games. Yeah. She's only competitive when it comes to like, smash.

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Anything with games? I'm really competitive. I just love it. I love the spirit of it, or anything related to that. Aside from that, no, I'm not competing. I'm not competing against you. I'm competing against mice. Yeah, I was gonna say your biggest like the, whenever I hear you talking about like anything you're, you're like, trying to plan for in your life, or you're looking forward to or you're just trying to accomplish for yourself and your goals. It's literally always like, the crux of it is always immediately like your own interests, or like self improvement, or like, your own personal goals that you're never, you're never like whatever you do to better yourself. You do not do like at the expense of others. Right? And exactly. I do. I do like, at the expense of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very like judgmental on Myself. Go you can do one more than this. You can work hard when my friends are like, Oh, don't feel good. Talking. Yeah, be okay. You're nice to everybody. But yourself. Yeah, my friends actually are more nice to me. They'll be like, they'll be like, Oh, pause. What? You're just being hard on yourself. I was like, I don't think so I think I can do better. proving their point by your reaction. That's so funny. It's actually really funny.

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Anyways, if you guys are out there, and you're struggling with, you know, like, what someone might have said to you, and not knowing how you want to deal with that for the rest of your life.

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You know, because sometimes, sometimes you don't, I'm not laughing at the sentiment, I'm laughing at the idea that like, you ever have someone do one thing one time and then your entire rest of your life affected by it. Because like, because in your mind it is yeah, that's like, obviously, I'm speaking from being a highly traumatized person. So like, I understand, I'm just also Joker's lover that was really understood. Like immediately when I get as he was like, he was he started laughing because at the thought of how I said it was it like it's true. It's true. Yeah, we do feel like it's our hero. Yeah, we do. It feels like the whole world's crashing and you walk outside and you're like, oh, wait, there's the world and fall apart. Yeah. Wow. The sun is still shining in the world still exists. Like sometimes it takes years to get over stuff. Oh, no, for real. I know. It's funny. There's some stuff that I'll get over in the blink of an eye that other stuff that I can, like, I have to make, like an active effort to like work through is so funny. I think the stuff that I the more and more that I heal and like learn and grow, the easier it is to deal with new things that could possibly be upsetting, versus the stuff that happened when I was much younger and didn't know better or didn't have the tools or the vocabulary or the knowledge or whatever. Right? Right. And it's like I know better now but I still have to go back

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And like he'll all that stuff and work through that stuff like, through new eyes again and again and again until I get it, you know, and I really learned a good deal. So it's like you're you're actually learning from those past experiences. Yeah. Like sometimes people don't want to learn from those past experiences. Ignorance upsets me so much. Wait, how are you living life or not wanting to learn this lesson? Like this lesson keeps repeating. Yeah, yeah. And you and you are clearly like, I have a friend that I always explain to, to her. I'm like, Hey, you're repeating mistakes. These are the issues that you're doing right now. This is what you need to do to make it better. Yeah. And I'm I'm very blunt, you're pointing out the pattern, and then they're getting upset with you because you're not wrong. That then that Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But like, if I am wrong, like, Yeah, correct me and let's Yeah, it's not like it's not like you're bringing it up and like, shoving it in their face right here. Like literally being like, Hey, I'm trying to help you. Let's pause. I see this zoom out. Right. You know, like, see the bigger picture. See what's going on? Yeah, like you're giving them your perspective. Yeah. Hey, you know, on an outsider's perspective, this is what it looks. You can't see the forest through the trees. Somebody else maybe could. Right, exactly. Yeah. And like, I just don't understand those friends. Like I understand the person then you're going through the struggle. Yeah, it's like on my side, how am I supposed to help you? I'm also still seeing like, you know, no one wants to face their, their demons? No, no, no one wants to feel hurt. Yeah, I was gonna say everyone's gonna, when you face the stuff that you you're like, when you're facing your biggest issues, and, and, and, and personal problems, a lot of that a lot of the hesitancy that we run into as a consequence of facing this stuff is that inherent, like embarrassment, or guilt, or shame, or fear, or self loathing, or self hatred are all these like, whirlwind and cacophony of negative emotions. And it takes, it takes a support system, and it takes empathy and compassion from the circle around people to let them know, Hey, I still care and love and accept you. Even even though it's understandable that you are struggling with facing these things. Clearly, you are not only these things, because look at who's around you. Are you not? I mean, like, look at the support that is still here or so possible, right? Whatever. Yeah. And if you are that support system, for a friend in your life, that's going through like the same thing over and over and over again, sometimes it's okay for you to just backup Yes, back. Exactly. Like if you boundaries works in like all directions. So like, you can be as helpful as you want with anybody, friend, family, stranger, it doesn't matter. But you at the same time can also decide what is a healthy boundary or limit, or like, a foot down or foundation for I can, I am willing and happy and able to hopefully help you with XY and Z. But for contextual reasons, whatever, I cannot help with this or be a part of that. There's ways to reaffirm that, that you love and care for somebody without enabling those.

Unknown Speaker 23:24
Those like problematic patterns or behaviors or whatever. And the way that you notice those problematic behaviors is basically, let's say, you're going out with some friends, and you you end up doing an action that you don't normally do, but you're just doing to make sure that your friend feels okay. Like that would be you noticing one of the problematic behaviors that you are technically encouraging the, the tricky, the tricky thing there is like I have, we have to point out the ugly stuff and the difficult stuff. And in order to like to do anything with it and to like get better. And we have like the first step of anything is accepting it. And like you just have to even if you don't like it, even if it's embarrassing, it's not like, right, well, the thing that you're mentioning is like we were talking about earlier how like people get in their heads and they're like, Oh, this is my whole world. You know, sometimes you'll be in a situation and you'll be thinking either it's, it's not you, you'll think it's either it's not you or it is you. And if you're in that mentality, whichever one you choose, sometimes it's hard for you to see the outside perspective. So that's where the friends are supposed to come in, and be honest with you and tell you hey, you're at a problem or hey, you're not the problem. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes people you know, I know people lied to their friends and they're like, oh, you know, it was totally the other person. Yeah, problem. I mean, I've struggled with my people pleasing as much as like as much as you and like everybody else, but I'm learning more and more that like, there is a way to both

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be direct and still be compassionate like you can be firm and like

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I will literally be as descriptive and as like over over explaining as possible when it comes to this stuff to be to make it clear to somebody, it sounds or may feel like an attack or a judgment call, or some sort of shaming or guilting or fear tactic, because a lot of the time we

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we like React out of those places, because we didn't always have healthy

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upbringings or surroundings or environments or influences, whatever. So it's like, first things first, I'm gonna tell you, it's gonna sound a certain way. But I swear to you that my heart is in this place, and I would I spell that out for them. And then it's like, here's what I see as a problem. And for a long time, you don't even have to spell that out like, exactly like I doing it anyways, just because you don't know how sensitive they are in that moment. Exactly. I strongly. I strongly, like, encourage any of my friends, like, please, if I if I say or do something like out of pocket, please correct me because chances are I not even aware that I did something harmful like that, right? And even more. So. I don't want to be I don't want to go without the mild correction because I don't want to continue to make whatever faux pa that was. Because you know, it could be like a one and done comment. You know, 99.9% of the conversation in the Hangout was cool. But you said or did this one thing. And I was just kind of like weird. That's like a good communication and good communication takes a long time for you to develop, develop. But on the other side, there's a toxic part of people's personalities when they're when they're young, and they don't really some people let it go. And sometimes people learn from it. And other people don't learn from it. Yeah. And then you get stuck with certain people who are in that toxic like thought process. Yeah. And your maturity isn't there yet. Right? But exactly. And if you're already past that maturity, and they're going through this toxic mentality and thought process, and you're trying to communicate, you're being a good person, and communicating and then they're just like, they're just being malicious. Yeah, it was just like, they're, they're fighting you want. Yeah, and you're just like, then you're stuck in a in a heartbeat, where you're like, dang, I really have to just let this go. Exactly. That's what I was gonna say I've literally in the last 446 months, had that in my own personal life where a friend of mine that we were really close for a few years, we're no longer friends whatsoever, and like, no longer in contact, because I, I realized, I mean, without getting in all the details, it boils down to, I am further along in my healing and in the ways that I felt I needed to grow and mature from, you know, years past, and I like who I am now and who I'm trying to be and what I want my, my life and my, my space and my right, my like, friend group and like, just overall what vibes are in my life, and to be different. And I realized, like, I grew, I still have love and care and compassion. I still believe strongly in this person, even if we're not friends anymore, right. But I it is not healthy for me to be around them. Because where they're at with their struggles, I can I would never tell them that they aren't.

Unknown Speaker 28:30
Yeah, you don't want to progress. Yeah, like, I know what their issues are. As much as they have shared. And so from there, I can give my like, my wisdom and my knowledge and my thoughts when they ask for it when they ask for it or when we're having that conversation. But when it comes to, like, you know, I can I can draw your bath and I can load your gun, but I have so bad that you bathe and hunt, you know, figuratively, so I get that. But at some point when you realize what your problem is and what you can and maybe should

Unknown Speaker 29:03
do about it. And you're simply just not right. Do what you do it the best you can do to clear your mental headspace. So you can just focus on doing that thing that deep down you really do want to do when you really do want to see a change in your life, but you have to actually, like, take an action. So if you're struggling with a friend that you're not understanding, it's okay. Everybody goes through that. There you go. That's the end. Wow. Wow. Wow. I don't know. I don't know. And yeah, we'll talk more about we'll talk more about this stuff later on our next podcast. So check us out next week on rfl. With Wesley and Bosma Bye, bye. Thanks for watching. rfl reaching out for love. If you want to check us out. Please go to boss my team at Instagram. See you guys later.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai