Pursuit of a Lifestyle (TRANSCRIPT)

00:00:00] Announcer: And life's journey. We must seek to reflect, learn, and grow. Welcome to the road to rediscovery with your host Aubrey Johnson.

 

Aubrey Johnson: Hello, and welcome to a solo episode, and the season three finale of the Road to Rediscovery. I'm your host, Aubrey Johnson. And I'm so excited that you're here with me. The road to rediscovery is about reflecting on life's lessons to learn and grow from them. And of course, take it to the next level and uplift others who are struggling.  When we were kids,

how many of us had dreams of how we wanted to live when we were older? This could be in the form of whatever job we want it to have. Right. A certain job we wanted, or maybe there was a [00:01:00] place we wanted to live, how we dress, what we drove and more so in a nutshell, it was, what do you want to be when you grow up?

 

No matter what these details were. We viewed them as an upward direction from our childhood way of life. It's our minds. I glimpse into our future adult selves. Now, this was for most of us, our first experience of expiring to be something bigger, something better, and having a growth mindset when I was five.

 

Okay. For example, when I was five, I wanted to be a major league baseball star when I grew up, uh, I wanted three sports cars and a lot of jewelry. And I'm guessing, I'm guessing that part was influenced by seeing my father's rings and watches that he wore. Anyhow, as I got older, I no longer want it to be a baseball star, but there was still a certain way of life.

 

I [00:02:00] aspire to grow into. When I was 17 when I was 17, I'm not sure how or where I learned this, but I began to sense there was a society of a different level, a society of prestige and distinction that, that existed somewhere. I didn't know where it was and I really didn't know how to get there, but I knew it was a society that I really wanted to associate myself with.

 

Here's an example. This is what, I mean, how many of you have heard the phrase, the upper crust, or how about the upper echelon? All right. Here's another question. Uh, let's go back to. The music of the awesome eighties. Yeah. How many of you have heard that song from Sheila E called the glamorous life, [00:03:00] or how about, uh, that song from Sade? Sade had an album called, called diamond life.

 

And on that album was a tune called smooth operator. If you've heard that song, then you're quite familiar with one of the biggest lines of that song, where she says every day is Christmas and every night is new year's Eve. Well, in my mind, at that age, these phrases in songs described the exact lifestyle that I at 17 at the time could not articulate.

 

I identified with the songs, the lyrics and the high society pictures that they painted. But having said all that, taking a step back, how did I identify with this? You know, how does it, how does an African American middle class boy from the eighties relate to this way of life? I don't have an answer for you.

 

I simply don't know. [00:04:00] All I know is that. My idea of an aspiring lifestyle was never in line with those of my peers while there's included the latest gym shoes, gold rope necklaces, and boom boxes. Mine, mine were along the lines of living on a Hill, overlooking the city, jazz brunches and evening cocktail gatherings.

 

That was my sense of the lifestyle that I aspire to be and aspire to have. So let's fast forward three years. So that puts me at 20 years old. And that's that age? I had a best friend named Damon. I had a lot of friends, but Damon and I, we were the most likeminded. So what I'm about to tell you now is going to sound very wacko.

 

So hold onto your seats and be ready for this. Damon. And I often talked about this high [00:05:00] society lifestyle that we both aspired for. We were both very likeminded. Uh, we also talked about how do we achieve it, right. I would talk about getting to the point in my life where I'm not just living, but I'm living.

 

And when I say that second living. I would touch the tip of my fingers to the tip of my thumb much. How, um, if you could envision an Italian cook gesturing when describing the taste of a wonderful dish, that's what I did when I mentioned living. It was above and beyond. Right. Very silly. I'm sure. Yeah, I know you're laughing and it was silly, but that's, that's, that's what I truly felt in my heart.

 

There was living in there was living. Making that gesture with your fingers and thumb. [00:06:00] So now let's fast forward to a more recent time. About a year ago, I started creating what I call an ambient readings. These readings are not poems and they're not quite spoken word either, but I wanted to share with you.

 

One of the ambient readings that describes the lifestyle that I pursued all those years ago. There'll be a link to view this on the episode, show notes, it's on the Road to  rediscovery YouTube channel, and I encourage you to click that link on the show notes for the full Ambient experience. And I want to send a quick shout out on the music credit to the incredibly talented Sam mills and his group.

Bent. So ladies and gentlemen, this ambient reading, I call the circle.

 

The circle [00:07:00] weekends at Martha's vineyard Cartier, polo matches and art galleries

Monte-Carlo getaway, Aston, Martin, and yacht excursions.

Winter's in Belize Tiffany jewelry, crisp, tailored suits

the circle, from skiing in Vale, to walking in a French Villa, driving the European countryside. all in the same week, when the circle calls, how will you respond.

 

Okay, so there, you've heard it as we all know, the days turned to weeks, [00:08:00] weeks turned to months and months, turn to years. My pursuit for this type of life diminished taking a back seat to other life events, such as becoming a husband, becoming a father and a lot more. So now at my age, my Tinder, well, I don't want to say Tinder, but seasoned.

 

I guess, age of 52, I just turned 52, three weeks ago. In retrospect, I've come to rediscover what living living truly means. It's not the designer jewelry or the clothing, but it's the date nights with your spouse? It's not the convertible sports car. But it's your son's little league games. It's not the French Villa in the summer.

You know, it's not that either, but it's the birthdays, Christmases and graduations of our children. So let me tell you this because when it comes to rediscovery, [00:09:00] my biggest lesson with this by far is learning that my true meaning of living was not attained as a result of my pursuit in short. I didn't find living, but living found me in the family, suppers, painting the house, teaching my son to drive among many other things.

 

Living found me. I can't imagine my life any other way. And I wouldn't trade my living for any other in the world. Thank you all so much for tuning in and listening. This episode wraps up the third season and I'm so grateful and blessed for your listenership support and love. Thank you for putting up with me these three seasons.

I am tremendously humbled that you returned to this podcast each week. I also want to thank the amazing guests who appeared this season, sharing their tragedies, triumphs, and awesome, awesome, [00:10:00] awesome insights. If you have any questions or thoughts, just shoot me an email at roadtorediscoverypodcast@gmail.com. Okay. We are working on some very, very  special stuff for bringing out season four. And it's all I can do not to tell you. So I think I better close it right here. If you like what you've heard so far, these three seasons, please share with those you feel could benefit from this? We're going to take a short two week hiatus.

 

To kind of reset, reframe, reshape some things, but we'll be back soon after bigger and stronger than ever before, with more extraordinary guests and episodes. Ladies and gentlemen, we're all roadies, on this journey of life and it sure feels good having you on the road with me. I love you all so very much.

Please stay safe. Thanks again for listening. We'll chat again. Soon.

 

[00:11:00] Announcer: The road to rediscovery is an AJ shark production.