The NormalNess Podcast – Episode 1 – Discrimination
I started this podcast on a complete whim – I recorded this episode (safely, hands free and legally) in my car, driving home from work one day. I had seen a post that implied it’s ok to fire people who were sick. And I was mad, frustrated, annoyed…. you name it, I was feeling it.
The tipping point was when I tried to listen to a business podcast to distract myself, and that podcast started on with the everything fun is wasting time in your life rhetoric. I hate that as much as I hate hustle.
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Links mentioned in the episode:
Transcript:
Speaker A [00:00:05]:
Welcome to the NormalNess Podcast. This podcast covers blogging, writing, the anti-hustle life, loving shiny objects, and much more. It’s as nicheless as I am. And remember, we’re all normal to ourselves.
Speaker B [00:00:20]:
I’m tired and angry and disappointed right now. I was in a group that I should have left a long time ago and I saw something that was one of those straw that broke the camel’s back type things. And basically it has to do with sick, ill, disabled people effectively implying that, you know, they don’t have a right to work, that employers don’t need to be accommodating, that business is more important, and it’s not the first time I’ve heard this, by a long shot. You know, I’ve got fired for having tonsillitis before in my life, more than once. And it just bothered me today, like I was really upset and angry and disappointed. I just, I can’t believe that people think that way. And I know they do because I’ve experienced it. Maybe I have maybe because it’s been a few years since I’ve experienced it, then it had gone to the back of my mind and just brought it to the front, which is what’s made me upset.
Speaker B [00:01:30]:
But I don’t know, I’m, I’m not getting my, you know, my social media from the right place clearly because it’s bothering me. There’s a standard that I can’t walk by, I can’t accept. It disappoints me when I see discrimination against people against health reasons treated as acceptable and normal. And it’s— I’m bothered. I’m really, really bothered. There’s not much I can do to change those people’s opinions. I just— I left. I didn’t want to go talk to them again.
Speaker B [00:02:11]:
I was like, if you actually think that way about people, I’m just not bothering to talk to you. You are not worth talking to. So trying to put it out of my mind, but it’s still playing on me. And yeah, I’m, I’m bothered. Hopefully I’ll be less bothered soon. But you think it’s a good reminder to make sure you’re all listening to social media, or what you read, what you see, what you hear, whatever it is that you’re consuming, make sure that it’s actually things that are— I hate to use words like aligning with you because it’s far too hippie-dippy for me, but you know, I’m tired and angry, so I don’t know what other words to use. But make sure that you are auditing what you watch, listen, reflecting on if it’s valuable for you. I put a podcast on thinking, oh, you know, business podcast, this will be a nice distraction, it might help me get out of that mood, and then I can’t even remember who the person was or what the podcast was, and I got stuck on one of my other sort of fingernails on a blackboard things, like, oh, idle time, idle time.
Speaker B [00:03:34]:
’cause, you know, if you have time where you’re idle, then you’re less productive, and it’s just like, for fuck’s sake, I cannot win with anything I’m consuming today. There is nothing wrong with idle time. Humans need rest. Humans are allowed to recuperate, they’re allowed to have fun, they’re allowed to let their minds wander. These are all positive fucking things, and I’m so sick of, you know, the hustle movement. If you’ve read my blog or listened to me on social media, you’ve probably seen rants and blog posts and whines and whinges and everything about how I don’t like hustle. And it’s just weird that I’m finding these two topics today, you know, oh, I don’t have idle time, oh, sick people shouldn’t work. Because I wrote a post which I published on Medium a few years ago, I’m not sure when, and it’s about the isolation that hustle promotes.
Speaker B [00:04:32]:
And it’s basically asking you to consider what if you want to hustle? What if you’ve made an active choice and you want to hustle, you want to have a side business, whatever it may be? What if you want something more than what you’ve got? Personal, professional, hobby, I don’t care. But you can’t do it because you don’t have the energy, that you have to take care of your health first, or your family first, or you have some other variable that means that you don’t have the time to do what you want. You might get 5 minutes a week of good brain time on it. You are not a failure for that. It’s incredibly fucking privileged of people who think that you can just work, work, work at 100% productivity all the time. And it sounds miserable. It sounds horrible. I don’t know why you would want to do that.
Speaker B [00:05:38]:
What’s so wrong with downtime? What’s so wrong with allowing yourself to read a book? Watch a shitty TV show. These are when things can inspire you. Your downtime lets your thoughts marinate. What’s so wrong with time? I— anyway, I— it just— I’ve had a good week, but it’s been a shit afternoon because I got angry at discrimination, tried to fix it with, you know, distracting myself with a podcast, and what do I get? Angry again, so I don’t know. It’s a sign that I need to change what I’m listening to, who I’m reading, and all that sort of thing, because it’s not working for me, and that’s the only lesson that I’m capable of taking away from this right now, is that I’m not being proactive enough with the choices of media that I’m consuming. Maybe there’ll be other lessons in the future when I’m less cranky and angry. But for now, that’s all I can, that’s all I can think of as a, as an outcome, as a step, as an action, as something that I can do soon to make myself feel better.
Speaker A [00:06:54]:
Thanks for listening to the Normalness Podcast. Shownotes can be found at normalness.com/podcast. If you like this episode, please leave a rating and a review.
