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Finding Happiness is the Work · Conversations with Dad

• Mbrownstein3485: Hey, Dad. Stanley Brownstein: Hey, how are you? Mbrownstein3485: I'm doing okay and excited to talk to you. It's not our normal Monday, it's Wednesday. yeah, mean, all weeks are full, but I felt a little bit less in control of my schedule than normal, but I appreciate you being flexible and available. ⁓ And one of the things that... Stanley Brownstein: Good. Mbrownstein3485: I feel lucky to come back to with you. And I share this a little bit before we spoke is just, I think the things that I'm drawn to in conversations with you are things that I just wonder about myself in terms of how I approach and respond and interact with the world. and, you know, specifically like what, what we value and prioritize about people, how we navigate difficult decisions like those. Those were some of the big things that have come up thus far, whether it's like about career or, our relationships and our values with respect to our families. And so anyways, I just, just want to say thank you for just rolling with our fluid agenda. and, you know, helping me to reflect and I guess in process also leading you to reflection. So my, my first question is, how has it been going for you? Stanley Brownstein: I, well, ⁓ a pat answer that I like to give is if things are going pretty steady, I'm okay. Not looking for excitement. Just looking to create a decent foundation for. ⁓ you know, the, for what life throws at me. But things have been going well. Thank you. Mbrownstein3485: Cool. And in particular, how has it been, ⁓ and we talked a little bit about this off the recording, but just how has it been just this conversation, like the conversations that we're having, you and I, how has that been going for you? Stanley Brownstein: Well, as we said off the recording, ⁓ this I feel is a very big topic because ⁓ we're discussing ⁓ relations with people, what makes those relations meaningful. ⁓ And all of those things are very dynamic because we're talking about, know, we reflect on our relations in real time. Mbrownstein3485: Mm-hmm. Stanley Brownstein: And as you know, there's a great fluidity to our relations. We have a commitment to relationships. So no matter where that relationship is at any given time, that commitment still holds. ⁓ And then we have other relationships which are much more transitory, but they still may be important, especially if... You know, I used the term situational a lot last time, which I don't have as many nowadays just because, you know, I'm in a different phase of my life. But as you know, you have people that you see regularly every day and you don't have as meaningful and deeper commitment in terms of what that relationship... ⁓ ⁓ I'm sure you do, you want to be civil, you want to be kind, but that's different to the commitment that you might have with other relationships. ⁓ So ⁓ when you were asking me about significant relationships, just a whole lot of different impressions were coming to me. So ⁓ I felt that was a... ⁓ I felt it was difficult to explain it perhaps in a very simple way, but it appears that you appreciated what I had to say. So I guess I explained it well enough. Mbrownstein3485: One of the things that came up and just, guess if we're thinking, ⁓ like you said, our conversations are touching on topics like relationships and thoughts about key people in our lives and those thoughts and ideas evolve over time. One of the things that we're also doing is we're kind of zooming in more or less like chronologically to some extent. And right now we're kind of in like your late twenties and thirties or early thirties where you made the commitment to go back to school and become a chiropractor. And so I'm wondering if we can come back to that time. And I think where we left off. chronologically is, you you were talking about this idea that like if you were gonna take these science classes, something that you were a little fearful of, and if you did well, like that would be almost like ⁓ a validation and give you the energy to keep on going. I'm wondering if there was, if we can zoom into that time, ⁓ were there any people or other energy sources during that time that kind of... kept you going when things got tough. Stanley Brownstein: Okay, so as I recall, so I was about, I think I started that endeavor because I had to take a full year and a full summer of the prerequisites. So that means that I was like 26, 25, 26 when I did that because I started chiropractic college when I was 27 and I graduated when I was 30. Mbrownstein3485: Mm-hmm. Okay. Stanley Brownstein: And I remember something that really motivated me was I was working with a group of people. Mbrownstein3485: Mm-hmm. Stanley Brownstein: And a number of the people in the office were engineers. So they were professionals. And then there was another gentleman who was ⁓ a clerk, but he was an interesting guy in that it was ⁓ pre-tech. So he was the kind of guy that people would come to him from all over the department, from different departments within that agency and say, Joe, you know where this is. Mbrownstein3485: you Okay. you Okay. Stanley Brownstein: Do you know about this? And like, would, you know, he would know, he would know where the file was, you know, like going back, you know, a decade or two type of thing, right? Mbrownstein3485: Okay. Stanley Brownstein: I mean, and he was this guy, it's hard to say how old he was, but let's say he was late 40s, 50s and obese. And he was a nice guy. would kibitz. His desk was right next to mine. I got along with everyone in the office to some degree. And I knew when he retired, he would die. I mean, that was it. I mean, this was his life. know, he was morbidly obese. Mbrownstein3485: Okay. Okay. Stanley Brownstein: I mean, I'm saying that, I could be totally wrong, but, and I said, you know what, if I can get a job that gives me meaning, even if it takes me till I'm 40. you know, because I was in my 20s then, so that was like, you know, way in the future. It was worth it. Mbrownstein3485: Hmm. Stanley Brownstein: So that was certainly something. And plus that was something that really motivated me. But again, it was within my own imagining. But also, because I was exposed to chiropractic, which I also came upon that very late. It was only in my early 20s that I first even heard of chiropractic. But just the whole idea of ⁓ holistic healing and things of that nature. Mbrownstein3485: Right. Yeah, let's talk more about that actually. Because I know that you had done Tai Chi in your 20s too. Stanley Brownstein: But yeah, so was actually probably my late teens. Yes, I started. Mbrownstein3485: Yeah. ⁓ and so I guess along this thread of just this idea of, of, ⁓ finding meaning, you know, part of finding meaning is being open to it, but also there were some things that clicked and it seems like there are some of these things that were already in place for you. You just weren't necessarily aware of it. Like one of the things you said might've been our last conversation or two conversations ago, you're like, ⁓ yeah, like East and West, like these are some things that were important to me, but there ⁓ was an origin of these experiences that kind of were in place for you to begin with. yeah, we'd love to... ⁓ sure. Stanley Brownstein: I think my religious upbringing was the... While it was an inherent... ⁓ Restrictiveness, you know, especially to Orthodox Judaism. I never really, I didn't really feel that in terms of restricting, ⁓ I'll call it my search for meaning. ⁓ But I do feel that on some level, psychologically, who knows what, you know, Mbrownstein3485: Okay. Stanley Brownstein: It could have started in my childhood, some need for, I don't know, meaning on some level to this scary world. But I feel that... Mbrownstein3485: Okay. Stanley Brownstein: Because I always had an interest in psychology, philosophy. I just even remember reading Dale Carnegie. Are you familiar with him? Mbrownstein3485: Hmm. business? Stanley Brownstein: No, well, it might've been, it was just kind of, there weren't really self-help books in those days, but Dale Carnegie was kind of a, someone who in a way was kind of like that. know, how to speak to people if they're, and Benjamin Franklin, you know, I read his biography, you know, I was always interested in, I think, mean, as I'm saying it now, Mbrownstein3485: Yeah. Okay. Right. Sure, sure. Stanley Brownstein: doesn't necessarily, ⁓ it's not necessarily true, but I can imagine that I didn't really feel that I had, I didn't see mentorship in necessarily ⁓ my family. I I think there were a lot of things that were kind of, ⁓ that I picked up and that I valued, but in terms of, know, ⁓ with Mbrownstein3485: Mm-hmm. Stanley Brownstein: three older brothers and my father, if you think about it, was kind of like a scattered ⁓ jewel of impressions of how to deal with the world. There wasn't like a consistent, strong model. So perhaps I was searching for that on some level, but it had to also resonate with me because, right. Mbrownstein3485: Hmm. Right, right. Yeah. All right. That's that's cool Stanley Brownstein: But that could just be psychological BS. in retrospect, that could have been a factor. Mbrownstein3485: Well, you're right. You're, making sense. You're trying to make sense. mean, the question that I asked, like the, the why, or I guess trying to underlie, trying to get to the underlying, the underpinnings of, of your search for meaning, like you went back even further, ⁓ to like possible interests and your interactions with the world beforehand. ⁓ which I, Yeah, I mean, that's a big question. I'm also, actually, when I asked that question, I wasn't even trying to even get that far. I'm like chiropractic, like being a chiropractor, Tai Chi, like, could you just share like who introduced that to you? Stanley Brownstein: So was an interesting organization. So originally, I was at Queens College and I was taking courses. So it was this course, ⁓ Self-Concepts in Communication. it ⁓ was taught by this guy who had a PhD in ⁓ psychology. And it was a cool course. Mbrownstein3485: Okay. Stanley Brownstein: It was philosophy and psychologists at the time, because that era, know, Rogers and Maslow, all those guys were big. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but you know, just self-realization kind of psychologists, not just Freudian kind of stuff. So this guy was impressive to me. I mean, he had a black belt in karate. He was, and they were starting a Tai Chi class. So I said, all right, this sounds interesting. I didn't know what it was, but he was an interesting guy and he kind of, so that was East and West in a way. The guy had a legitimate PhD. And it ended up that he was part of this school that emphasized physical, emotional, psychological and intellectual growth. And the people in his school were kind of similar to him in many ways. My impression, I mean, a lot of them were professionals. They had degrees and they were interested in this stuff. So there were courses in martial arts and yoga and philosophy. mean, we were discussing Wittgenstein and ⁓ Husserl and Taoist philosophy and all that. Mbrownstein3485: And this is at Queens College. Stanley Brownstein: No, the only thing was that Queens College was a Tai Chi class, but then what happened is they opened up the school in Manhasset. So we started going there. ⁓ So I was meeting these people and I was being introduced and I was learning these ⁓ studies and I was practicing these arts and you know this guy there was a chiropractor. had a holistic health center. Mbrownstein3485: Okay. Stanley Brownstein: I mean, this guy was involved with the initial licensing of ⁓ acupuncture in the state of New York. I mean, they were kind of powerful people and they were cutting it. This guy was Steve Fernanda, yeah, but he wasn't even the head of the place. It was someone above him, so to speak. ⁓ So I got involved with them. I was kind of... Mbrownstein3485: Wow. And this is Joe Fernanda. Steve Fernando, okay. Okay. Stanley Brownstein: studying with them for about three years. So obviously it ended when I, I'd actually ended two years before I started ⁓ taking my classes. No, a year before I started taking my classes and two years before I started ⁓ chiropractic college. But, you know, the lessons I learned, Mbrownstein3485: Okay. Okay. Stanley Brownstein: are what attracted me to chiropractic and also ⁓ ⁓ made it look like a valuable career choice since I really didn't feel connected with any other career that I thought would give me satisfaction in terms of, yeah, satisfaction. Mbrownstein3485: What were some of those lessons? What were some of those lessons that you learned at that time? Stanley Brownstein: What's that? First of all, that I should ⁓ proactively ⁓ direct my life to do something that I feel would satisfy me, that would motivate me, that would be meaningful. ⁓ Do you mean more in terms of specific lessons that I learned in the classes or just more of a psychological emotional lesson on my own. Mbrownstein3485: I guess in terms of what was relevant to some of those decisions at that time in your life. And I know this is in retrospect, so I guess it's you making some of those connections that gave you the fuel to make that big decision. Stanley Brownstein: think it was an issue of just taking control of one's life, just not being a leaf in the wind, just not being a victim of circumstances, ⁓ not feeling that, not being passive to... to what the circumstances have led you to rather, you know, making the decision and following through on what you think is best for you. Mbrownstein3485: I was thinking it'd be kind of neat to close each conversation with like based on what you just shared ⁓ and reflected on if you were to distill it in ⁓ like a lesson to share with Michael or Jessica or Felix or Poppy or Shiloh, Piper, Theo, like anyone who's listening. ⁓ That would be a neat way to close, but I feel like what you just shared was probably that lesson. But if there is something else that ⁓ comes to mind or relating to that even, we'd love to hear it. Stanley Brownstein: I think in any way, I don't think it's necessarily what one does that ⁓ makes it valuable. I think it's the mindset in which they do it. So you have to kind of honestly assess what makes you happy, what doesn't, why it makes you happy, why it doesn't, why you think he can do something or why you don't think he can do something. and be honest about it with yourself. And based upon that information, figure out what you want to do and go for it. I see a lot of people in my practice and what they do is the least of it. I mean, the first thing that impresses me is is whether they're kind of happy, good people, you know, or if they're, or because of their laziness or their lack of maturity results in their not having enough food on the table or not having health insurance. And yet they're complaining about that and their life is miserable. It's kind of like, you know, that's a toxic person. But if someone's a garbage man, you know, or a painter or a carpenter, and they're happy with, or if they're not happy with what they're doing, I mean, you know, like why? know, and if you are happy with what doing, that's great. I mean, that's, so I feel very fortunate that I was in a position to evaluate where I was at and what I thought would make me happy. And ⁓ I'm very grateful in a way that I, Somehow I got that together. Thinking about it and doing it. Mbrownstein3485: Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, even, even hearing what you're grateful for, think sounds like a evidence and alignment around, of what you were just saying, this idea that it's not so much the people, the environment, things like that. It's your, it's one's ability to the extent to which they're able to be honest and reflective and. like self-aware around your relationship to things. And yet at the same time, I mean, you use the word grateful, like at the same time, there's, there are, maybe there needs to be things externally, obviously internally, um, that either you cultivate or maybe that are already present that sets you up to be able to make those impressions, to draw those conclusions. All that to say, you obviously found some agency. but it also sounds like you're grateful for even that opportunity wherever it came from. I appreciate those two pieces that kind of work together there. Well, thank you, Dad, for making time today and sharing a little bit about, we've been kind of, we've been not stuck, but like in that chapter of your life where you're making some of those big decisions. And next week, maybe we'll move beyond there. I'm still interested in hearing more about the work in the work. ⁓ And it'll be just after Mother's Day and we've talked about mom at various points. ⁓ Maybe there'll be some more conversations about just the invaluable way that mom helped to shape your, some of those choices at that time as well and beyond. But in any case, thank you very much. Stanley Brownstein: You're welcome. Love you. Mbrownstein3485: Love you, Dan.