Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
Charles and Dan are just two guys talking about relationships, masculinity, and authenticity. Join them as they discuss books and media, as well as their (sometimes messy) personal stories, to encourage men to join the fight for their mental, physical, and emotional health--because a world of healthy, resilient men is a thriving and more secure world for everyone.
Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
Men and Bears and Interior Design!
Episode Summary:
In this episode of the Mindfully Masculine Podcast, hosts Charles and Dan delve into the final chapters of Garrett Muntz's "Self-Care for Men," focusing on optimizing living spaces for better self-care. They explore the practical aspects of arranging and utilizing spaces within one’s living environment to enhance personal well-being. Additionally, the episode kicks off with a thought-provoking discussion based on a social media query: Would you rather encounter a man or a bear while hiking?
Introduction to Space Optimization:
Strategies for making the most out of living spaces.
The importance of arranging furniture and choosing appropriate decor to foster a relaxing and productive environment.
Living Room Adjustments:
Recommendations for furniture placement to encourage social interactions and maintain comfort.
Tips on selecting the right size and type of furniture and electronics for different room sizes.
Kitchen Organization:
Importance of maintaining an organized and clean kitchen.
Suggestions for refrigerator maintenance and optimizing kitchen storage.
Bedroom Improvements:
Ideas for enhancing sleep quality through better pillow choices and minimizing external light.
The role of proper bedding and creating a restful atmosphere in the bedroom.
Enhancing Personal Spaces:
Discussion on the personal and psychological benefits of designated personal spaces like a "man cave" or a reading nook.
How personalizing your space can improve mental health and personal relationships.
Q&A and Social Media Insights:
Insights from social media on personal safety perceptions in the wild.
Discussion on gender dynamics and safety in public and private spaces.
Closing Thoughts:
Charles and Dan wrap up the discussion by emphasizing the importance of creating spaces that not only meet functional needs but also contribute to overall mental and emotional well-being. They invite listeners to think about how their environments impact their daily lives and to make intentional changes that can lead to more fulfilling and relaxing living conditions.
Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. Okay, so this week, Dan and I are finishing one of our last episodes where we discuss self-care for men by Garrett Muntz, and this one's going to be about the space in your house, apartment dwelling and how you can optimize that space for your self-care practices. But before we get into that, we are going to have a brief discussion about the would you rather encounter a man or a bear if you were out hiking in the woods? And we're going to talk about how many of the ladies are answering that question and how some of the guys are reacting to the way that ladies are answering that question. So I thought it was a useful discussion and I shared some clips on social media last week from our discussion and got a lot of good comments and feedback, so I appreciated that. All right, Enjoy the episode and please like, follow or subscribe in your chosen podcast app or watch our full episodes on YouTube.
Charles:Thanks, Good morning Charles. Good morning Charles. Good morning Dan. How are you doing today? I'm well. I'm well Good to hear, Feeling healthy, feeling strong.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:Good yeah, got some good sleep last night. This might be a long one, so good.
Dan:Yeah, we're doing a marathon all right, we'll see.
Charles:We've got one section left of Self-Care for Men by Garrett Muntz and I'd like to get through the whole thing if possible, but we'll split it in two if we have to. Sounds good. Online debate where women are answering the question. If you had the choice of being stuck in the woods with a man or a bear, what would you choose? Okay, and there are more women are saying a bear than you might initially expect. What, which? That's not even the surprising part. The surprising part is how men are reacting to them, saying that they would rather be stuck in the woods with a bear.
Charles:Okay, and it's been mostly entertaining for me to watch, because I feel like I understand some things that a lot of the guys that are participating in this conversation don't understand. But so let's talk about it. I would assume maybe I should assume if you were asked the question, would you rather not necessarily be stuck in the woods, but be like you're out in the woods hiking alone and you're surprised by either some guy or some bear? Which would you prefer? And my answer initially I was like man, it'd be really cool, it'd be exciting to like just be hiking to run into a bear, yeah, um, because, guys, you can find anywhere, right, guys, you can find anywhere, but bears they're only in the woods. So, but, um, yeah, I think the mistake that I see a lot of guys making online is that when they hear the answer of oh, oh, I'd rather be with a bear, they immediately go into this mode of this is just a question of statistics and risk mitigation, where, if you listen to any women who are expanding on their answer, you understand very quickly that this isn't just a cold discussion about statistics or risk. This is about their personal experience and the experience of other women and the sort of the analogy I thought of was that and maybe you can identify with this too we both like dogs and we both like playing with dogs.
Charles:Sure, if I had the choice of playing with a big dog or a little dog, my own personal experience is I'm more likely to get nipped by a little dog than a big dog and for that reason I am I'm not uncomfortable in either situation, but I'm more comfortable roughhousing a little with a pit bull or a German shepherd than I am a schnauzer, even though the bigger dog could certainly do more damage.
Charles:Just, I've never had an unpleasant experience with a big dog and I've had plenty of unpleasant experiences with little dogs. So in that case, if you were just going by the books of human experience, what's more dangerous to be in a violent confrontation with a German shepherd or a Chihuahua? Then you're going to probably say, oh, just by the numbers clearly it's a German shepherd. But if your experience has been I've never had a German shepherd or a pit bull rough me up, but every other little dog I try to play with at some point loses its shit and bites me yeah, then I'm going to be like, oh, give me the big dog. Yeah. And I feel like that's where women are coming into this discussion, because very few of us, very few people, have had negative experiences with bears and every girl you're friends with has some story about some dude.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:Acting the way he shouldn't act.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:And I think we are dealing with a bit of a specific subset of men, guys, who will go online and think oh, I just read someone's opinion, now I have an opinion about their opinion and I have to share my opinion. They have to hear my opinion too. That's already a group that is going to be a little more difficult to communicate with and, from the lady's perspective, it's also a group that's a little more fun to troll and try to rile up. You know what I mean. So, anyway, I just wanted to share that with you and get your perspective on it. Yeah, I absolutely understand where they're coming from, and if you try to boil it down to a statistics question, then you're missing the point.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I think it just speaks to, I guess, the ignorance of a lot of men to realize the experiences that a lot of women have had and when they take that approach where they're saying, hey, how could you possibly pick a bear Because they're. But yeah, it really goes to show. And it reminds me of where have we heard that story about taking a survey? Somebody came into a survey of a bunch I heard about it from you, oh, ok, so I read it somewhere. And basically a guy comes in and it's a of a bunch of.
Dan:I heard about it from you, oh, I did, okay, so I read it somewhere and basically a guy comes in and it's a mixed audience and surveys hey, how many women felt unsafe in the last year, like where their life was being threatened. They all raised their hand Right and they said how about last month? Most of them kept their hands up and none of the guys had their hands up right. Yeah, how many people right? And and at that point he kept whittling it down until how many people felt unsafe walking from the parking deck into the classroom today?
Dan:And it was still like half of the women had their hands up and none of the men did, and it was just an eye-opening experience and and story for me anyway, in terms of wow. Women feel threatened for like their lives, not like a little scared, but like life action. Being threatened on almost a daily basis and to try to go through life like that would be untenable to me. Now, again, that's not every woman's experience, but at the same point, it's a lot more than the average guy, for sure. So I think what you had just told me is another way of helping people understand, who never really even thought about it. Yeah, grabbing their attention with that dramatic story of a bear.
Dan:Right which you think of this ferocious animal. How could you possibly pick a bear over a guy? Yeah, and, like you said, it's your experience with the little dogs. Right, and I had that experience too until I started to date some people who had little dogs and they were sweet. I always thought they were nasty. I grew up around big dogs too, german shepherds specifically, always sweet. The big, the really big ones, golden chewers yes, that's not a ferocious dog, but the bigger dogs even as I've gotten to know pit bulls and stuff like that they are typically don't know like friendly and and happy and lovey. Unless it's a real threat, it's not just, oh, because I'm approaching the owner or I'm approaching the dog, the little ones go nuts. So I definitely can see your point with that as well.
Charles:And the other thing that I am bringing into this conversation too and it is definitely a function of being older and perhaps being therapied is when good verb, thank you. When someone answers a question in a way that, like, just doesn't make sense to you, like what I can't believe, you're choosing option a instead of option B, then you're either going to default to okay, either you're uneducated or you're irrational or whatever, or you're going to be. You're going to go the other way and be like oh, that's curious, I can't believe your answer is this much different than mine. I wonder what's your, how's your process so different from mine that you're coming to this answer that I'm not coming to? How many of those do you see, though? Again, I don't know that, those are the people that are driven to reply online to other people's opinions or comments, but that is one thing that it's wow if somebody is coming at a question like that with the exact opposite answer as me.
Charles:At my best, my reaction to that is oh, that's really curious. I know what goes, I know what went into what goes into the answer for me, I know why, how I arrive at option man or option bear, but I wonder how they're getting to the, and then you could conceivably have a useful conversation with somebody to say, oh, that's interesting, I see it this way, I'd love to hear why you see it this other way. Or you can just be like, oh you're stupid, oh you're silly, and it should be. This, coming to those conversations, the wrong way, but it just it works better. Ted lasso cliche of be curious, not judgmental, it really does lead to a richer, more successful life in pretty much every facet. If you, if something strikes you as wow, that's really different from me. You can either look down your nose on or you can be like I want to know more, I want to understand this yeah, it just gives you more experience and knowledge to be able to see from another perspective, and then you can choose.
Dan:You don't want to give up your you could. It doesn't just cause you're listening to somebody else's opinion.
Dan:It doesn't mean you have to agree with it. You could still stick to yours. But then you at least you know that there are other options, right, and it's nice to be able to have that and to be able to draw from, because down the road you might run into a similar situation where you could then think of oh hey, this is my default, maybe this is another way I could think about it, and it serves you. It serves as it's another tool in your tool belt. It's going to serve you down the road.
Charles:And that's really what. Yeah, the thing that we talk about validating someone's feelings or validating their, even validating their opinions, it's not a matter of saying, yes, I, I now see things a hundred percent the way you see them. It's just saying I believe that you see things the way you're telling me you see them, and that and I don't think it makes you crazy, and that's what seems to be lacking in a lot of the not just the men, women dialogue in our culture, but just the person-to-person dialogue is saying, okay, I believe you that you see things the way you see them and you're not crazy for seeing things different from me. And yeah, it feels like you're giving something away when you say that, but you're really not.
Dan:No, you're gaining something, if anything. If the other person is willing to take the time and energy to explain it to you, they don't have to do that, and if they're going to do that, that's a gift at that point for you, because they didn't have to take the time and energy to explain it to you.
Charles:Right and a lot of, and I've been in situations where I'm talking to people online that I don't know where they'll have the opposite view of something and I'll say I see things the other way, but I'd love to learn more about why you see things this way. And a lot of the time, because everybody online is so defensive, people will just be like no, it'd just be a waste of time for me to try to explain it to you. Okay, how's that course going to work out for us in the longterm? When somebody comes to you and says In a kind way, yeah, it says I'd like to learn more. I'm not going to waste my time trying to educate you. Educate yourself.
Dan:What I'm trying to do. And now, if somebody says that you've just discredited that answer in my mind, because now A big part of my brain is going to go, okay, you?
Charles:didn't think through that. Yeah, exactly A big part of my brain is going to be like okay, One question and then you're offended. This person doesn't. They don't actually know why they think what they think, or?
Dan:what used to bother me when I was online was somebody would then completely change the subject and attack me personally or make me feel like I'm less than a bad human being or a bad member of society because I didn't do this the way they want, and it was like OK, wow, now you've completely discredited yourself because you don't even. You can't even defend or explain why you said that initially.
Charles:You immediately went on the attack and yeah, I've experienced that plenty of times where some account that I follow posts something and I I disagree with it in a respectful way.
Charles:The next guy underneath me has gone to my instagram profile, looked at it and decided to make fun of something in one of my pictures. Yeah, instead of responding to my the point that I tried to make, yeah, he'll go and just okay, and in those cases, I never really I would say never bounced back at him, but I usually don't Cause it's like what do I do? A waste of my time? Yeah, this course is just we're not good at it, like we used to have to be good at it because, like when you got to do a disagreement with somebody, the next week you're still going to him to have them resole your shoes. Yeah, so you couldn't just you couldn't just be a jerk and walk away, because the people you were exposed to were people who actually were in your life. But now it's I'll never have another interaction with this person again, so I might as well try to make them feel as bad as possible, as quickly as possible, and just turn my back and walk away or block them when I'm done.
Dan:Yeah, I remember I thought it was a little bit of an overreaction about bullying in schools and things about, but now that I thinking about it, it just it's just transferred into adulthood. Now there's just adult bullies on online and they just they enjoy making people feel bad to me's bullying and that's, and it's just so. So many negative consequences on so many levels. Yeah, and I, you're gonna live your life that way yeah, thinking about bullying.
Charles:I remember, uh, there was one kid in in my sixth grade class that was. He was a bit of a bully to me and some other kids. I only he was only in one of my classes I think we had six or eight, eight classes in sixth grade where we would go from classroom to classroom, teacher to teacher. I saw him once in one of my classes.
Charles:Now, bullying can be a 24-7 job for somebody with social media and texting and all that kind of stuff. If you decide to fixate on some kid and you want to make him or her feel bad all the time, you have so many more resources to pull from. Yes, and you can use those resources to make a team of you and the other bullies and you can gang up on people and you can send the messages in the middle of the night. There's all kinds of ways you can screw with people. Now that you and I just did not have to deal with, yeah, and yeah, I can see why having policies in place to mitigate that is is essential now, or maybe it wasn't as much it would have been.
Dan:It would have been nice, even when we were younger, to have somebody in your corner to calm things like that down, but especially now yeah, we're just calling out like I felt like teachers just they just didn't, yeah, they didn't give a shit or they just, I don't know, yeah, ignored it, had other things on their minds, who knows. Yeah, feel like it happened a lot for teachers to have not have said things. I don't know, or maybe in this situation the teacher wasn't around, maybe the teacher's out of the room and that's when it all happened. I don't have a vivid memory.
Charles:Yeah, I don't either. I don't remember what the exact circumstances In the moment. Yeah, you certainly feel like you're alone and nobody has your back. Why is that? Because they didn't care? Because they were too busy, because the class size was too big, they had too many other obligations? Yeah, who knows. But yeah, I feel like effective programs to get in the way of that are very helpful, very necessary, and it's just telling kids to toughen up is not the answer.
Dan:Now the kids are seeing the parents and they're being. They're able to see role models or examples of adults bullying other adults too. So they never saw. We didn't see that. That's true, yeah. And now, being online, they can see all that yeah, I'm even and they can hone their practice of bullying because they can see.
Charles:Yeah, even being involved in sports when I was young. The stories you hear now of parents losing their minds at umpires and coaches that never happened when I was a kid. Rarely, I would never hear some parent in the stands screaming about a call or anything like that. It was really only when I got older and I wasn't playing little league or anything like that that I started hearing stories about that. Like that's crazy, I can't believe. Like the proper response to that is you get shunned by your community when you behave that way. Yeah, and now we don't, even though your kids play T-ball. That sense of community is it what it was back in the eighties when you and I were were playing sports?
Dan:And a lot of times the coach. If somebody did say comment or whatever, our coach would have a talk with the parent afterwards and and there always. But it was few and far between.
Charles:Yeah, yeah, I can't remember it ever happening in my case, but yeah, it's interesting how the world has certainly changed, and not always for the better. Okay, let's let's get into the material here. This section is on space, and so we're going to talk about mostly where you live, but not exclusively that. So he's going to talk about how we can integrate our self-care practices into the place we live, and he goes room to room in this first section, what you can do in different areas. So we'll talk about the living room first. He does suggest that you emphasize comfortable and convenient seating. That will encourage conversation, and I can certainly agree with that. He also does mention using furniture that's proportionate and not just.
Charles:I think guys would have a tendency to overpopulate a smallish room with big, stuffy, plush, comfortable sofas and recliners and things like that, where he's right that and tvs too. You can definitely go too big with your sofas and your chairs and your televisions based on the size of the room that you're in, and the good news is it's pretty easy to go online and say, okay, for a living room that's this size, what size sofa, loveseat, television should I have without it looking, because it will look stupid if you go either way too big or way too small on the scale of your furniture, and it'll also feel weird too, yeah, like I've been in some very small apartments of friends of mine where they had this huge plush leather monstrosity and it's just, it't look right to me yeah, I in my last house in new jersey I did that.
Dan:I actually had a couch. It was like they had all the pieces but it didn't fit perfectly in the way. It was like an exceptional yeah, and so like I ordered special parts of it because it was this huge thing where you could put it all together and it was almost like an entire, like a bed for the entire room and it was like this.
Charles:I made in this lu type thing yeah, just way too big, you couldn't even walk around and get up off of it and it was just yeah and mistake I made for sure yeah, I have done the same thing in small places too, where, both on the tv side and on the furniture on on the seating side, where it's just, I want a big, cushy, comfortable sofa, and it was just in a place that was way too small for that scale.
Dan:And what he's recommending in this book is the exact opposite of what most people do and what I did, which was make sure that every seat in the living room can see the TV and the picture he's got in the book. Here it's they're all facing kind of each other, they're seating the couch and the two chairs and the TV's off to the corner, and it's a little bit better for conversation and maybe even like board games and things like that kind of detach you from that entertainment. Yeah, the thing is, though, if you don't have a lot of visitors over and I really don't, and I know you don't that often it's it's like all right, who?
Charles:am I doing this for my visitors?
Dan:I never get, or am I doing it for me or am I doing it for for the book here for garrett?
Charles:yeah, that's true. Yeah, I would say I, if you have enough space for it, which obviously I don't I'm a full-time rv-er but if you have enough space for it. I love the idea of a formal living room and a home theater where you got like where the formal living room is where you meet your guests, where you have coffee or tea in your in your little conversations yeah, and then a separate room where it's okay, this is where we go when it's time to watch a movie or tv show or whatever. I like the idea of being able to separate those two. But, again, you need a fairly large house to be able to make that happen. So, at the very, what you can do is have a modest-sized television in a corner that is not even modest-sized, but an appropriate-sized television in the corner where everybody's attention is not drawn straight to. Because, again, if you've got a fireplace to look at or a TV, it's going to be much more relaxing to have a fireplace going while you're chatting with your friends than having sports on or the TV guide channel on the TV in the background.
Charles:Yeah, set the lighting. This is this is something I learned from my ex-wife, because when I grew up, my my parents did it the cheap and easy way, which is every ceiling fan has a light fixture and that's all you need. Boom, there you go, where it just. It makes people look awful, it makes the room look awful. Just having that big bright light directly overhead is the worst, and so if you can figure out a way to have floor lamps and table lamps and sconces instead of just one super bright bulb in the middle of your ceiling, then, yeah, you will find it's. The people in the room look better, the stuff in the room looks better, everything looks better when it's not just one giant bright bulb in the middle of the ceiling. What are you saying about my dining room? Oh, you're dying, it is, and it really I haven't really noticed. Yeah, we really have the light on in there, though, don't we?
Dan:we do it's, yeah, but it gets a lot of through a lot of windows, that's true. You get a lot of natural light, so it's not quite as bad, but and at night it's terrible yeah, I, I could see how that would be, but again it's.
Charles:It's like. Then what are you going to do? It's in. In that case, you would have to do, probably floor lamps. Floor lamps, yeah, and those have their own inconvenience.
Dan:I did recently take that tv out of there. I don't know if you noticed. No, I didn't. I donated it. Oh nice, I was using it as a format habit while I was eating and so I took it out of there. I was like, oh you know what, I'll cover it with a sheet. I did that for a while. I'm like that looks terrible. I'm like it's like a heavy LCD TV. Oh yeah, yeah, I donated it the last weekend and it was. It was great.
Charles:I was, I'm glad to get it out of there and I've got a little bit a lot more room on the table. Now, yeah, tv, except for that, everybody, almost everybody, has a TV in the living room. But TV in the dining room that that put you in some rarefied air there. I don't know a lot of people that had a TV in her room and it would open up into the dining room and we could turn it.
Dan:She had a little turntable. It was only a 13-inch TV, but we would sit there and watch it while we eat. And it was a conversation. We can watch Gleason while we eat, yes, yeah, not good, not good, but because of that I'd wolf down food without even realizing it. Talk about anti-mindfulness eating?
Charles:yeah for sure. Yeah, that's a good point. I and I, I do most of my eating in front of my computer. Uh, again, I'm at a bit of a premium for space, but, uh, I feel like I give myself a pass on that because, with my space for food storage and for food prep being as small as it is, I have to be very mindful when I'm shopping for the food and when I'm cooking the food. Yeah, I don't feel like me zoning out while I'm eating is a problem, because the only I'm only cooking good, nutritious food for myself, pretty much in quantities that are reasonable in my place. So I'm doing the heavy lifting and the mindfulness when I'm buying it and when I'm cooking it. So that's what I'm eating, it, I'm just going for it. I have not noticed any negative consequences, yeah, yeah, but if I do, then maybe I'll consider switching it up.
Charles:So this next part is, it seems, slightly tone deaf on Garrett's part rugs, not carpet. Instead of installing a wall to walk wall carpet which can mask sounds but hold onto allergens, go for hardwood floors and I'm like, okay. So how many of the guys reading this book are in a position where they're just deciding what kind of flooring they want is okay. Either you're living with your parents, or you're living with a roommate, or you're living with your spouse or you're just renting a place. It's okay Even if you live in your own house that you own, free and clear. How many of you are going to read a book on self-care and then start pulling up your flooring and making different decisions based on what this guy in the book tells you to? I get the idea of make the best of what you have available to you, but really you should go with hardwood floors. It does seem a little condescending to the vast majority of people that are probably reading this book. Did that jump out to you at all when you read it? No, it didn't.
Dan:Because I feel like I don't know, I didn't really take any of this stuff seriously.
Charles:You know what I'm saying. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I definitely do approach most of the books we review with a more critical eye of huh what, why did he say that? Than you do? No-transcript, all these curtains hung up. But yeah, I'm not anti-carpet, certainly I'm anti-carpet in the bathroom. That's gross. I would never want. I've had a couple of friends who have had purely plastic based carpets in their bathroom. Okay, it still seems gross to me, though I don't, I don't want to be sitting on the toilet and feeling something furry on my feet other than your cat, other than like, yeah, it's just gross to me, so I would not do that. But I get why he would say I'm, I'm just gonna arrange.
Dan:I'm not gonna rearrange the furniture in my house and put down you might rearrange the furniture.
Charles:when we get to the section of Feng Shui, though, oh man.
Dan:Yeah, I might get a couple of lamps, but yeah, a big undertaking like changing out your flooring, Unless it's disgusting, right? I was in a position where it's just like got to get rid of this carpet because it's old and disgusting, Instead of putting down another wall-to-wall carpet.
Charles:Maybe I'll switch to something else. Maybe read this paragraph. Yeah, that makes sense. Open up to some other options. Yeah, I like that idea. He does say get some real art, and by real art he's basically saying not movie posters and not record sleeves he's talking about stuff that hung on my wall when I was in high school.
Charles:You mean Same. Yeah, I would say yeah, you can certainly have your own pictures that you've taken on your camera or your, even your high-end phone. You can have those blown up and printed out professionally and matted and framed, or you can just go find. The one thing I would be careful is don't just assume that any picture that you have is going to be able to be blown up to a large size and look good, because some resolution yeah, exactly high resolution, high res. If you're going to go big, it's got to be high res, otherwise it's going to look blocky and it's funny. You and I we still will occasionally attend conferences and conventions and they always hand you a program that has a schedule and stuff and it's like still, even today, some of the ads like full page ads. You'll see people will be usingquality art and you'll be able to see that it's blocky and pixelated. And how much worse would that be if you paid $70 to have it printed out and you hung it on your wall and it looked pixelated and nasty?
Dan:So I did get that done. I have a picture that I took and I wanted it huge. I wanted it, and a lot of these sites now will actually not actually Based on the size you select, they'll tell you not high enough.
Dan:Correct and I got denied for the request I had for the size and I wrote to them and they said we can do it, but it's got to be a lot smaller and so based on the resolution, so you can't go wrong, I don't think these days with trying to get these things blown up yeah, I would imagine most photo printing sites are probably going to get us can be pixelated.
Charles:They're gonna yeah, you're gonna want your money back. You're gonna complain, they're gonna be out. Yeah, that is yeah. So if you're printing on your own or maybe just taking it to a office depot or stables, maybe they won't say, no, we won't do this for you. Yeah, but it's a question you should definitely ask because you don't want to get stuck with something on your wall that looks like.
Dan:But it's nice if you have one of your own pictures that you're able to blow up.
Charles:Yeah, I had a couple of my my house in Deltona. They were my own shots that I'd taken Like DSLR, though. Yes.
Dan:They were DSLR. I was going to say an excuse to buy something new, but now more modern, the higher end phones from Google, apple and Samsung.
Charles:They've got what it takes to take some pretty, pretty big. You can get some pretty big prints based off of the stuff in your phone.
Dan:That's true, I just upgraded.
Charles:Yeah, there you go, iphone 2. All right, so yeah, some decent art on the wall can definitely upgrade things. The other thing is you can go to like art festivals and you can find stuff Great idea Pretty cheap. But and you can find stuff pretty cheap that's like actual paintings, not just prints of other people's paintings. You can find stuff that you like and just buy it and put it up on your wall and a lot of them don't charge a whole lot of money for their stuff.
Dan:Bring them to farmer's markets too.
Charles:Yeah, that too, that stuff. Yeah, all right, let's move to the kitchen. So in the kitchen you want to keep things as organized as you possibly can, so that you're not always having to dig through inconvenient cabinets and drawers to find stuff. You want to keep your refrigerator clean, because a gross refrigerator makes your food look and seem, and possibly taste, unappetizing, so be sure to, every so often, clean out your fridge. I've got a small refrigerator that needs to be defrosted occasionally, so whenever it's time to defrost it, I also give it a nice refrigerator that needs to be defrosted occasionally, so whenever it's time to defrost it, I also give it a nice deep clean with a chainsaw.
Dan:Yeah, I know how you like to clean your fridges.
Charles:That is how I dispose of my old refrigerators. That is how I clean them. Okay, let's see Upgrade your dish soap. That's another thing you recommend is have a have a scent of a soap that you like or, in my case, I like my dish soap not to have a set, so I go fragrant and fragrance and dye free for my dish soap, cause I don't want it to smell like anything.
Dan:It's amazing what smells can do for you in terms of your mood and your attitude. So I think that, yeah, if it smells like, if you're associating lemon fresh with clean, then get that lemon scent soap and it's a better experience. All the little things to grease the wheels, to get you to do the thing you don't want to do get it done.
Charles:Yes, thanks. One thing I definitely in my kitchen that I have scented is my trash bags. I use Glad trash bags that have a Clorox lemon scent to them and yeah, it does, because garbage is going to smell like garbage smells. But if you have that, uh, cloroxy lemon scent, it doesn't feel as gross when you walk past the garbage can as it might otherwise. Now, there's a lot of scents that they put on trash bags. I think I don't want my. I don't want. I don't want to smell vanilla plus garbage but for whatever reason, citrus always smells clean to me. I think most people. Yeah, I like my lemon-scented garbage bags.
Dan:Big difference maker for me when the kitchen has been getting towels dedicated for certain purposes, and I have one for only wiping the counters.
Dan:I keep it on the counter so that if there's a little couple of crumbs, whatever it is, I just use only those type of towels for the crumbs on the countertop and just sweeping them up real quick with that. Having it on the countertop is a lot easier than even keeping it on hanging on a shelf or a little hook, because it's right there. So it's a lot easier to get that done. I have another set of towels that are only for drying my hands and another set of towels that are only for drying dishes. Nice, and I keep them right where I'm going to be using them and I have, you know, the same style for each one of those and that's the only purpose I use it for and it just. It's a lot easier to keep things clean and neat and tidy on as you're cooking, as you're using the kitchen, things like that, so it's not like an overwhelming pile that you've got to clean up right before a guest comes over.
Charles:Yeah, nice, I like that. And, like we've talked about before, you know when you can, when you can make those systems and those habits that easy that it moves it from the real expensive part of your brain to the cheaper part of your brain and, uh, that's yeah, you don't even notice. Yeah, exactly notice. That's the point. Um, he does recommend, if you've got some space, to put a small table and chairs in your uh kitchen. Um, because then you've got a place to sit and eat. That's not as formal as your dining room and also not as informal as you're sitting in front of your tv in your living room. I think most people probably have a small uh table in their kitchen, if their kitchen has space for it. Okay, let's go to the bedroom. He does recommend getting more or better pillows, and this is something that I'm about to do myself where.
Charles:So I used to always have four pillows on my bed, and it turned out to be a little excessive for me, and so I got rid of two of the pillows, two of the small pillows, and got a body pillow, and now I realize the body pillow is just too big. It's too big and it's too overstuffed for me, and so I'm going to. I think I'm going to go back to. I'm either going to go to three pillows or I'm going to go back to four pillows, cause I the one in the body pillow spot, or maybe I'll get just one King size pillow instead of a body pillow, cause, yeah, the body pillow. It's just, it's too much, it's too big, takes up too much space, it's not comfortable for me. So I think I just didn't my sheets yesterday, laundry wise. And when it came to putting the cover back on the pillowcase, back on the body pillow, I'm like man, I'm not gonna. When it came to putting the cover back up, the pillowcase back on the body pillow.
Dan:I'm like man, I'm not going to do this. Yeah, I tried the body pillow, same experience, and for me it was. I swapped back and forth, depending on the side. So if I'm tossing and turning I'm rarely on my back, I'm on either side and I couldn't drag that heavy body pillow very easily over from one side to the other. Yeah, not when you're half asleep King-size over from one side to the other, whereas not when you're half asleep. Right King size pillow goes like between my knees, no problem, it goes right over.
Charles:All right, I think that's what we're going to do. Then I'll just get one. I'll get one king size pillow, one king size pillow case, and then see, do an experiment, see if I like, there you go. If, worst case scenario, I switch back to four normal size pillows and then I'll just do that. But yeah, I was disappointed that the body pillow really does just seem it's. It takes up too much real estate. I don't need that much space to be opened up. Okay, invest in sheets.
Charles:We talked about sheets and sleep health earlier in this book, where he recommends linen and bamboo, both and I'm really on the fence of whether I'm going to. I'm due for another set of sheets and I don't know if I want to spend the money on the sheets. The bamboo like the best. The highest rated bamboo sheets on Amazon are $89, which doesn't seem like a lot of money. I'm not going to. I don't use a flat sheet, I only use a fitted sheet and I use a duvet cover on my and so it's okay right off the bat. I'm throwing almost half of it in the closet. Out in the cabinet. I'm never using the fitted sheet, so that makes it even harder for me to drop 89 on a sheet set it doesn't include pillowcases.
Charles:It doesn't include pillowcases. Yeah, so you get two pillowcases a flat sheet and a fitted sheet. And, yeah, the there's a lower rated one for, but the what seems to be the best bamboo sheets in the RV mattress size are 89 bucks and I'm trying to decide do I do that or do I just go with the a hundred percent cotton sheets I've been using for a while, just in a different color for 39, 40, 40 bucks and I don't know? The other thing is I've never used bamboo sheets before. I'm worried I won't like them. And yeah, I'm not super sweaty already. It's not like that breathability. I don't know that. I absolutely need it. These are all the things that I'm just kicking around in my head, trying to decide what to do next. What are your sheets made out of?
Dan:Some sort of spandex cotton thing, it's something from a sleep number where they're specifically made for, but those are more than 89 they are, but they're. They definitely cool you off. Yeah, without a doubt, and it's not one of those where it's they say it does and no, it absolutely. It keeps me cooler and that's always been an issue for me is sleeping too warm. So I only buy those sheets. They're freaking expensive as hell, but I sleep better on them. I even bring them, like to see my family and stuff like that Really, or to hotels. Sometimes I'll bring that. At least pillowcase makes the biggest difference for me. Oh, interesting, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it definitely keeps my head cool and dissipates the heat really well. So maybe I should hold like orthotex or something like that. Maybe I should give bamboo a shot then I don't know. I mean, if are you having a problem? Do you feel like you're hot and sweaty in the cotton? No, but I feel like.
Charles:I could, and things could always be better. I, okay, maybe the result I would have to put my thermostat as low yeah, if I. You know cause I told you a few episodes ago I've zeroed in on 64 degrees is where I like my thermostat.
Dan:And you know, maybe if I had cooler sheets I wouldn't have to be quite so, so you can make up some of that $40 difference there that's true Over the course of the year and the thermostat.
Charles:It would take a while, though. Yeah, cause I've got such a small space.
Dan:It's like $3 a month. But if you're not super happy with a cotton, I would definitely try the bamboo, or at least maybe go to a store where they have bamboo sheets so you can always feel them.
Charles:That's not a bad idea. Yeah, because I know what I don't like is microfiber. Oh, no way. I've experimented with the polyester microfiber before and when I first got my RV that was almost all you could find in an RV queen size sheets was microfiber, and trying to find just legit, hot, 100% cotton was difficult and, yeah, the microfiber. I don't like Flannel. I like a little bit in the colder time of the year Like a light flannel because it does feel it's very soft and fuzzy. But yeah, for most of the year in Florida, having something that is breathable and cooling would be nice. All right, I'll try.
Charles:The other thing is the bamboo ones I'm looking at don't come in very many colors. I think they come in three colors light gray, light blue and white, and I guess I don't need. I was wanting to go with an ivory sheet this time, but the white would probably still work because it's white. You, you can bleach, which is with other colors. All right, you convinced me, I'll order them.
Charles:Okay, let's talk about in the bedroom. In addition to sheets, he recommends table space, like night tables in your room, which I could not make do without. I want to be able to. I want the flexibility to have a drink next to me, even if I don't actually have one there. I want next to me, even if I don't actually have one there. I want to be able to have a book and a drink and a lamp oh right next to me when I'm sleeping. Yeah, the, I know there are some guys that will just set their stuff on the floor next to them and you're gonna you're gonna have a lot more accidents and messes when you do that, and especially if you had a cat or dog in the mix, then yeah, I would say Get up in the middle of the night.
Dan:My feet have knocked stuff over. Yeah, yeah.
Charles:And even very small night tables are out there and inexpensive Amazon Big Lots, Target, there's places to get cheap functional furniture. So I would say, and plus there's. You've probably seen jokes online about guys who just have their mattress right on the floor and maybe a light plugged in that's also right on the floor, and yeah, that you people, women in particular, will look down on that. Yeah, Because it just looks. I did see that in college. Yeah, so did I. But it's same as same as a bushy beard or a an outfit that doesn't look like you put any effort into it. Just the fact that you are not doing everything as easy as you possibly can all the time. That does create attraction and respect in other people. So if you can have your sleep area look like you've put some, you've invested a little bit of money and a little bit of effort into it, it will look far better than just I dropped things on the floor and they landed where they landed. Yeah.
Dan:Yeah, what you say is how you do. Some things is the one thing is how you do everything Right.
Charles:Yeah, if you've not put any work into your house, people will assume that you are probably not putting very much work into your career or your personal relationships. Either, yeah, whether that's accurate or not, these are the assumptions that we make, and we make those assumptions because they're often accurate.
Dan:The analogy that I've probably beaten to death is you know, if you're looking for some help around the house to fix up your house, you're not going to go to the neighbor who's got the house with broken windows and door, that's chipping paint and everything else like that.
Dan:You're going to go to the neighbor who has a beautiful house, a beautiful garden, everything else yeah, Because they take care of it. You're not going to go to somebody who doesn't have their act together. And the same thing is when you're dating somebody or you're with somebody, even as a friendship or whatever you're looking, there's going to be like a two-way street, a mutual exchange of energy and support and everything else like that, Whereas you walk into somebody's house and it's the bed is on the floor and no frame, no headboard, no frame, no other furniture in the place or whatever. Oh my gosh, Like. Are they somebody who I feel could be beneficial and a mutual, beneficial relationship with friendship or otherwise? Or is this going to be like? Are they going to be leaning on me all the time for stuff and it's so, it's?
Charles:Yeah, to think about how you conduct. We talk about all the time about, look, our being a thinking human being is expensive, and so we always are looking for shortcuts Like what can I look at that will do some of this heavy lifting cognitively for me, so that I don't have to think everything through and look, the way you dress, the way you groom, the way you live these are things that other humans will use as shortcuts to try to figure out what you're about so that they can know it before they're super heavily invested in you.
Dan:Yeah, and I'm not telling, I'm not saying here you need to have the best of the best. You need like bamboo sheets and all this stuff. You look like you're at least on a I feel like a I don't even know what to say like as a normal level, but just something where it doesn't look like you're struggling in some way.
Charles:Yes, right, I mean I don't know how to describe other than that of staying in a hotel, and just look at the kinds of furniture and the way hotels look the way they do, because every day people are deciding whether to spend their money to sleep there. Right? And if, point, if your own bedroom looks dramatically different from what a clean hotel looks like, then you can expect people are going to react to that. What's going on here?
Dan:And especially if you have your act together, like you've got a job and there's no real reason for that. If you are, let's say, homeless and you're just getting back on your feet, sure, of course, okay, so there's a real, but then it's. Why is this person who presents themselves They've got a job, they seem responsible in all these other areas Now're living in this way? They don't have this act together? Now it's do. I really know this person? And now the level, a little bit of level of trust, is in question. Yeah, and why? Yeah, like you said, what's going on here? Why is this happening? Yeah, and where could this other, where could this also be happening?
Charles:in other parts. Yeah, like this. This doesn't jive with the story that I've told myself about.
Dan:There's no reason why he can't have at least a hotel room level bedroom, exactly, yeah.
Charles:And yeah, I would say you could apply that to other things too. If somebody checks a lot of the other boxes, they have a job, they have a personal life as far as hobbies and interests that you find attractive, that you find attractive. But then either the car they drive is just really messy, mechanically really unsound, like really not just old but old and beat up it's okay You're going to look at that and say what's or they don't drive at all. What's going on? It feels like there's a missing piece of a puzzle. And now I'm curious and now I'm wondering. I feel like I don't know something that I need to know. And so there's just a minimum amount of effort that you need to put into all parts of your life so that people can feel like you've got a cohesive, balanced life.
Dan:And yeah, I agree, and I think this book gives a lot of tips on how to get to that minimal level.
Charles:Yes, I agree.
Dan:And beyond if you wanted to.
Charles:Because I mean, it's objectively true that a, For most of us, a mattress that is just dropped on the floor may not sleep much better than a mattress that is on top of a box spring in a bed frame. 100%, I mean, it might be the difference between a night of sleep that's a 93 versus a 95 on a scale of 100. It may not be a difference that you notice, but there's probably no area of your life where you are only 100% practical, but there's probably no area of your life where you are only 100% practical. There are matters of taste and aesthetic are going to influence what you order for dinner at a restaurant and they're going to influence how you keep your house, and so all we're saying is, yeah, this is something that is going to make you feel better about your space and is going to make other people feel better about you that you put effort into your space. Okay, let's talk about putting your clothes about you. That you put effort into your space. Okay, let's talk about putting your clothes away. That's another thing for your bedroom. Don't let your bedroom become just look like a clothing bomb went inside. It went off inside.
Charles:Every time I think about this, I'm reminded of. There was that show on I think it was TLC that Adam Carolla hosted Catch a contractor, where it was all about these families that like hired a contractor to come do some work on their house and then they never finished the work, it just disappeared. And so they would run these sting operations where Adam would find the contractor and try to figure out why they left the person high and dry. Oh, that's great. I never saw that. Yeah, it was pretty entertaining. Oh, especially with Carolla.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Charles:And one time he was in his house where the contractor screwed him over, didn't finish a project, yeah, and he opened the door in one of their spare bedrooms and it was just clothes everywhere and he made some joke to the effect of I wouldn't expect for a house this small to have its own walk-in hamper just the phrase walk-in hamper. Whenever I think about a clothes-based mess in somebody's house, walk-in hamper is what pops into my mind. I am so astute, yeah and yeah. The basic idea is and look, there's plenty of us who will joke about how it takes takes a half hour to wash your clothes, takes an hour to drive and takes seven to ten business days to put them away. Sure, though, I do that myself.
Dan:I have laundry baskets full of clean clothes, and the worst part is they'll get wrinkled sitting in there Exactly so you've got to run through the dryer again. How am I going to learn my?
Charles:lesson. Yeah, I've gotten better at that, since I do not have my own washer and dryer in-house because I have to pay at the laundromat.
Dan:You don't have the room to let the baskets of laundry sit around anyway.
Charles:That too, because I own one basket, yeah, and when I do laundry that basket's job is to take my laundry from my camper to the laundromat and then to take the clean clothes from the laundromat back to my camper, and then it becomes my hamper. After I take the clean clothes out of it and hang them up or put them in the drawer, then that basket is now my hamper again. So if I leave clean clothes in the basket then I've got no place to put my dirty clothes except on the floor.
Dan:Hey, anybody out there who wants to learn to live efficiently, go and stay with Charles for a couple of weeks and you are going to get some really efficient habits ingrained in you that you can bring back.
Charles:Yeah, there's just so many of these. There's no other option. It's either you're you're picking stuff up or I'm tripping over things. Those are my only two choices, and so, uh, I prefer not to trip over things. Okay, he does reference a double blinds, meaning basically he's saying make sure that in your sleeping space you are able to eliminate stray sources of light that could get in the way of you having an uninterrupted good night's sleep. And, yeah, I only have blackout drapes on all of my windows because when I especially if I'm not feeling well and it's going to be harder to sleep anyway I want to be able to close everything, make my space as black as night as possible and be able to sleep without worrying. Oh, my neighbor happened to come home late from work or late from his night out, and so at midnight I'm getting high beams coming through my window. I don't want to put up with that.
Dan:Yeah, I use eye mask and earplugs. I shut it all down as much as possible and I mouth tape. I close all the holes.
Charles:I need to. Yeah, the mouth tape is something I need to experiment with. I have not, I've not played with it.
Dan:Yet, yeah, breathing through my nose, definitely I sleep better, definitely.
Charles:And you're not worried about like at some point you're going to feel like you can't breathe or anything.
Dan:Oh, it's happened, oh, plenty of times.
Charles:Oh yeah, I don't like that part of it.
Dan:But I wake up. Honestly, it's two or three times a year and usually it's. I get a little bit of stuffy nose over the course of the night and so then everything starts to yeah, I stopped. The breathing gets to be a challenge and it does wake me up. It's not like I pass out or whatever, but when I do wake up it's one of those.
Charles:Unpleasant to me but it's not.
Dan:It doesn't happen very often and it's, I think it's more than worth it. Okay, oh, maybe I'll try. I am, and I'm not using like duct tape, where you're using real stuff. It's just a one small little strip of medical tape, medical grade tape. We'll separate on its own If, if you pull your oh okay, gotcha, gotcha, okay, yeah, gotcha, gotcha, okay, it's not like I need to rip it off or anything, you just gotta.
Charles:Yeah, I am. That reminds me I'm preparing for this trip to Europe, where I'm going to be sleeping in hostels the whole time and building my Amazon list of all the things that I want to order before I go and I order. I'm going to order one eye mask that, like, really covers this much of your face and also has a bluetooth speakers built in so that I, in case there is somebody in the bed next to me, solid logs, real loud, or something I could turn on either some nature sounds or some. There's a lot of different noises out there now too pink noise, green noise, brown noise, white noise, lots of different noises and so I'll have access to that. Then I'm also buying a three pack of just much lighter two, and I'm going to take all four of them with me. I'm going to take the one that has data grade speakers. I'm going to take the three back so that I don't have to wear the same one night after night. I can rotate through them, and I'll probably do some plugs too. I'll bring some earplugs as well.
Dan:My suggestion is, if you're not used to wearing the eye masks, I a little bit of an indentation, oh yes, for your eyes, so it's not pressing against your lids. Yes, 100%, because that can get really uncomfortable.
Charles:Yeah, I've only used actually, I guess I've used both I've used the kind where it's just there's an elastic strap on the back and then, yeah, it pushes right up against. And yeah, the ones where there's some, either they're a formed shape where they look like bug eyes a little bit and they don't actually touch you on your eyelids yeah, those are 10 times more comfortable. Yes, so I definitely recommend those. Yeah, and then for the earplugs, the thing that I'm going with this time is I'm buying they're just a little foam ones that you crush and then put in your ears and then they expand. Yeah, I'm getting ones that are.
Charles:Each pair is individually wrapped in its own little plastic bag. Oh, that's a great idea. So then I don't have to worry about what else is it touching in my toiletry bag or what else is it touching in my clothing bag. I just, every night, I just open it up, use it and then, when I wake up in the morning, I throw that pair away and every night I'm using a clean pair that I don't have to worry about. You know, ear infections or anything like that.
Dan:Yeah, I use a little Ziploc or vitamin bags.
Charles:Oh yeah, you got plenty of those yeah.
Dan:Two and a half by three inches and between vitamins and I'll put my earplugs in there. Yeah, anything that I want to keep relatively clean, it works well for me.
Charles:Okay, that makes sense. All right, we're about an hour in and I think we can go ahead and stop for now, and then the next one. We will definitely briefly cover Feng Shui and how much I do or do not believe in it. Try to predict where I'm going to come down. Then we're going to go over what you can do in your bathroom to make it better, which bathroom is important, because most of the self-care that you engage in is probably going to be in your bathroom. Then we'll talk a little bit about houseplants and candles and which of those I'm willing to use and which ones I'm not. So that's where we're at. I hope you enjoyed this.
Charles:This part on managing your space, the one chapter's title or whatever is about basically evolving up from the man cave, and certainly you can engage in self-care in your man cave If that's a place you can go to relax and chill out and enjoy some of the things you're passionate about.
Charles:I've never been a man cave guy.
Charles:Like just basing a room on either sports or video games or hunting or something like that has never really appealed to me.
Charles:If I had the space and the money, I would have a debt or a library way faster than I would have a man cave. But yeah, I would say, if you've got the square footage especially if you're an older guy and you don't have kids at home anymore, but you still have a good sized house Think about making one of those rooms that you're not really using much anymore into a space for you to decompress and enjoy the things you enjoy. And yeah, depending on who you live with and how much space you have, maybe you can do that, maybe you can't, but I do see value in having that kind of a space, and a lot of the chillest, happiest guys I know they do have that space where it's not just a home office where they have to work all the time, and it's not just a living room or a family room, it's more of a. I'm going to decorate this and I'm going to put the stuff in here that I enjoy being around and I enjoy relaxing with.
Dan:And you can even do that and he talks about this in a corner of a room with a comfortable chair. No-transcript. Relaxing could also be your wind down spot before you go to bed or when you first get up. It really does make a big difference having that.
Charles:Yeah, that's a great point. There have been a couple of places I've been on vacation either Airbnbs or VRBOs where all they had was just a really nice, comfortable reading nook, where it was like a very small-scale bookcase, that they just had books, that they left there, a very comfortable chair and a nice lamp a very comfortable chair and a nice lamp. And I was surprised how much time I found on the vacation that I was just sitting in that spot, just picked up a book that they already had there and just sat there and relaxed and read. And yeah, it doesn't take a whole lot of space. You don't certainly don't need a room. You can just find a corner of an existing room and make that into a nice spot to read or listen to music or listen to podcasts or whatever. And, yeah, I like that idea. Okay, cool, so we will pick up next time with some more stuff about your space, starting with Feng Shui. So, thanks everybody, we'll talk to you next time.
Dan:All right, take care.
Charles:Wow, you made it through the whole thing, so you must like us at least a little bit, in which case you should definitely follow or subscribe to our show.
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