Life Is a Lazy Susan of Sh*t Sandwiches: Advice, Inspiration and Laughter from the I've Had It Podcast Hosts

There are certain elements of my life I can account for. I can show up for those I love. I can work hard, treat my body with respect, spread kindness, tip well, and vote Democrat. But ultimately, I can’t control how others perceive me. I can’t control how they organize their own lives. With my support and brilliant maternal guidance, I can only gently suggest or influence. But that’s about it.

The world is a big place, and the more you open your mind to see the big picture, the good, the bad, and the ass-backward, the better you know yourself and your place in it.

No matter how I spun it, my life became a lazy Susan of shit sandwiches.

but even if you won the lottery and paid off all your student loans, your car, and your mortgage, then went on an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Maldives, you might only be happy for a nanosecond before a whole host of other problems cropped up. You’d be in one of those thatched huts over the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean thinking, I want to be on a yacht in Bora Bora. As soon as you attained that one thing you thought you had to have or die trying, your mind would create a new void with other unattainable wants and desires. Because that’s how the human mind functions. It wants more, more, more. The latest designer handbag, a bigger house, and the latest iPhone. Hotter sex. New clothes. Different spouse. Different lips. Different face.

I remember thinking how exhausting it was to exist as a rational thinker in the Bible Belt. No one judged you based on your character; instead it was all about how many times per week you went to church.

I believe that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity. I will die on that hill.

I was raised to believe Jesus was my best friend. It's hard to say who introduced Jesus and me. My mother, or maybe her mother or her mother before her. Though maybe in Oklahoma, you're just born with this familiarity, the way you can tell if a tornado's coming from the color of the sky.

The great thinkers have been writing about the suckiness of life since writing was invented.

The messages we internalize, that we should be hotter, richer, more fulfilled, only increase our feelings of inadequacy.... The search for total happiness leads to unhappiness.