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The People We Carry: How Relationships Shape What We Notice · The Original Self Podcast

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He told me he was alone at a small table in the
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back of the deli. A sandwich in front of him
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and no phone in his hand. He takes a bite, chews
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slowly, and then sets the sandwich back down.
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Around him, the place is very full. A couple's
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quietly negotiating where to sit. A kid's trying
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to convince someone that he needs a second cookie.
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And someone nearby is laughing way too loudly
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into their phone. He's not a part of any of it,
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but he's paying attention to it all. He's sitting
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there as if he has nowhere else to be. As if
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the sandwich, the noise, and the strangers are
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the whole afternoon. And the whole afternoon
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is completely enough for him. Hey everyone, it's
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Evet. After doing hair for decades and now
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working as a coach, I've learned that people
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rarely leave us with only memories. Sometimes
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they leave us with a sentence that we might repeat
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to ourselves or sometimes they change what we
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actually pay attention to. Sometimes their way
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of moving through the world becomes part of the
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way we move through ours. we carry people. Their
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voices become part of our inner conversations,
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their questions interrupt our certainty, and
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their way of living shows us that there just
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might be another way to live. Today, I want to
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explore how that happens through one person I've
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known and knew for many years. His name was Loren
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and he taught me something about attention, time,
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and what it means to be fully inside your own
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life. So I just want to start with two questions.
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Who taught you how to notice your own life? And
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what part of the way they lived has quietly become
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part of the way you live? So the man in the deli
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was Loren. I cut his hair every six weeks for
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16 years. And every time he came to the salon,
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he said the same thing to me. I can't believe
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it's already been six weeks. He wasn't saying
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it to make conversation. He was genuinely surprised
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that time had escaped him. I believe Loren was
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6 '5". He was gentle. curious, funny, and one
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of the least hurried people I had ever known.
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He wasn't slow in the sense that he couldn't
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get things done. He had gone to law school, built
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a career, raised a family. He had a full life.
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He simply didn't seem to stand outside his life.
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with a stopwatch, or constantly judging whether
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the next thing should have already happened.
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He was inside of his life. Nothing dramatic happening.
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No stranger revealing the meaning of life over
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that pastrami sandwich. He just ate lunch. He
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watched the room. He enjoyed being there. As
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he was telling me about this deli experience,
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I was picturing the deli, the sound, the people
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that were there. What stayed with me though was
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not the sandwich, which apparently he thoroughly
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enjoyed, but the fact that he had been present
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enough to even remember the sandwich and the
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experience. This sounds so simple. But it raises
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a larger psychological question. Why do some
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people seem to inhabit an ordinary experience
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while the rest of us are already mentally halfway
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into the next one? There are two psychologists,
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Matt Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert. They studied
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that question by contacting people at random
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moments during their day and asking three things.
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What were they doing? What they were thinking
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about and how they felt in that moment. They
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found 47 % of the time people's minds were somewhere
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other than what they were doing. Think about
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that. Nearly half of the sampled people sampled
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moments, were being lived in one place and mentally
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occupied in another. They found that the mind
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wandered during pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral
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tasks. And on average, people reported being
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less happy when their minds were wandering than
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when their attention was in with what they were
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doing. That doesn't mean that thinking about
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the past or planning the future is bad, right?
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Those abilities are part of what makes us human.
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We completely need memory and imagination. Who
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wants to live without those two factors? I don't.
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But the problem begins when the mind is rarely
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where the body is. Examples, we're having dinner,
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but rehearsing tomorrow's conversation. We're
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on vacation, but planning how we'll post about
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the vacation. Someone we care about is talking,
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but we're composing our answer before they've
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finished. I know this pattern very well. I can
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turn almost anything into a project. I can take
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a perfectly good day and begin organizing it
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or improving it and then evaluating it. I can
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be inside the experience, while still managing
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it from the control room in my head, basically.
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Maybe you do it too. Attention scans ahead, solves,
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anticipates, notices what's missing. It keeps
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moving so we feel productive, even when there's
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nowhere we need to go. Loren seemed to have
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trained his attention differently. It wasn't
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just the deli. It was how he interacted with
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most experiences in his life. Loren's attention
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training in positive psychology is called savoring.
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It's the capacity to attend to, appreciate, and
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regulate the positive feelings available in each
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experience. It's related to mindfulness, but
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they're not identical. Mindfulness asks us to
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notice what's happening with openness and whether
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the experience is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
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Savoring focuses specifically on positive experience.
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It's what we do when we allow something good
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to reach us. Without it, something good can happen
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without us ever fully receiving it. Think about
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when someone compliments you. You immediately
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explain why the compliment is not true. I do
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this often instead of just saying, hey, thanks
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so much. Or we finish something difficult and
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instead of taking in the accomplishment that
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we've done, We move the standard or bar whatever
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and begin criticizing how we could have done
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it better Even worse What about when we're laughing
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with someone that we're super interested in and
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then that brain of yours that chatter says this
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won't last as If preparing for a loss will make
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it safer That's the positive event happening
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while savoring is absent. Positive psychologist
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Fred Bryant describes three ways we can relate
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to positive experiences across time. We can anticipate
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something good before it happens. We can savor
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it while it's happening. And then we can reminisce
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after it's over. Loren seemed capable of all
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three. Music was one way he did this. He seemed
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to know every song from every decade, but he
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especially loved The Grateful Dead. He loved
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that band so much that he and his best friends
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took the year off between college and law school
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to follow them around the world. I personally
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do not share this love of the band at all. Yet
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he kept trying to convert me anyway. Anyone who
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knows me knows I live for music and make it a
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daily part of my life. So our connection was
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strong on that front, just not what the Grateful
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did. At one of our appointments, I was telling
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him about this harmony group that I was in and
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how when someone suggested we do a song by CSN,
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I didn't know who that was. I had to look it
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up. He was completely shocked that I didn't know
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music by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. He started
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rattling off songs and I knew maybe one of them.
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The look on his face was total bewilderment that
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I did not know this. And of course it totally
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made me laugh, right? You just couldn't believe
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it. The next day after our appointment, Loren
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showed up to my studio with a CD that he personally
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burned of the greatest hits from CSN. Because
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he felt life was too short for me to not know
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their great music. That wasn't the first time
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he made me a CD. And those small gestures encapsulate
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him. He would notice something that had pleased
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him. anticipated that it might please someone
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else, and then extended the experience by sharing
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it. Loren was also a nature photographer. I
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mean, for real, no joking. His images were awesome
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in the true sense of the word. But what made
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his images even more powerful? was that he paired
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the image with song lyrics when he would post
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it on social media. The image didn't need explanation.
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It was... I think he did it because it was a
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way that one beautiful experience reminded him
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of another. And he captured it. You'd read the
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lyrics and just know. Not only that's what he
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felt, but it just made sense. It was as if he
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was gathering moments and then let them speak
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to each other. His love for his family, it was
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limitless, even in the hardest of times. He didn't
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shy away from the vulnerability or difficulty
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ever. Savoring is not about making life sentimental.
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Loren can be completely opinionated. We both
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argued and championed the Golden State Warriors
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and whether Draymond Green's antics that week
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were justified or not, right? We discussed politics
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a nauseum and once we spent an entire hour-long
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haircut discussing why we didn't understand Taylor
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Swift's music or her fame or the hysteria. We
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just eventually succumbed to the fact that millions
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of teenage girls recognized something in her
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that didn't belong to us. That's how we rectified
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it and moved on. We still didn't like her music,
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but you know, growth has its limits. The point
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is he could remain in a conversation long enough
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to become less certain of his opinion. He didn't
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rush to win a point or prove that he was right.
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He seemed more interested in what might become
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visible if we just kept talking. That's another
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form of attention. Sometimes being present means
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noticing a sandwich or letting a question interrupt
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an easy answer. During the pandemic when the
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salons were closed and Nobody knew when life
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would return to normal. I drove to Loren's house
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and cut his hair in his carport. The haircut
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took, I don't know, no longer than 20, 30 minutes.
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But it was funny because Loren found the lowest
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chair he could find because, you know, I didn't
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have the ability to lower him down 12 inches.
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That's, you know, necessary for me to reach the
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top of his head. And he wanted to cut his hair
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in the garden, because it was so beautiful. But
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I don't know, the ground was uneven, or there
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were stairs. I don't remember. But I was still
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recovering from a hip replacement. So we stayed
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in the car park. Afterward, we stayed for almost
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another hour just talking. And the practical
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purpose of the visit was over. But neither of
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us treated the remaining time as just disposable.
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I think we sometimes think of savoring that it
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requires a meditation retreat, a sunset, or a
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perfectly quiet nervous system. It doesn't. It
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can happen in a carport with hair on the ground
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and the conversation that continues after its
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original purpose is finished. The experience
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doesn't have to be extraordinary. We simply have
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to stop abandoning it before it's over. The other
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side of savoring is what I mentioned before,
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dampening a positive feeling. Dampening is minimizing
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or disqualifying, basically mentally stepping
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away from something good. It can sound like modesty.
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It was no big deal or anybody could have done
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it. I just got lucky. Sometimes it could sound
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like protection. Don't get too excited. Something
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will probably go wrong. We've all said those
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things. It can also look like constant movement.
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If we leave quickly enough, we never have to
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feel how much it matters. I fully understand
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that impulse. Receiving joy completely can make
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us feel vulnerable because once we admit that
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something matters, we also admit that it can
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change or possibly end. Staying slightly detached
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can feel like emotional insurance. But refusing
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to enjoy something won't prevent that loss, right?
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It only means we experience a loss twice. Once
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by not fully living in the moment, and then again,
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when the moment's gone. So might as well take
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a chance, right? The reframe of these thoughts
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and actions is not slow down and appreciate every
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second. That's a completely impossible standard
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and it creates judgment in many ways. I think
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the reframe is much smaller. Can I stay for one
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more beat? Can I let something good reach me
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before I explain it away? Or can I notice this
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ordinary moment is a part of my life and not
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an obstacle between me and my life? I think that's
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really important to recognize. Loren died in
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his sleep two weeks after his birthday. He had
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seemingly been in good health and there were
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no warning signs. His wife called me herself
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to tell me. She was speaking very quickly as
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though if she slowed down or paused for even
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a second, she wouldn't be able to finish her
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sentence. I could barely speak from how shocked
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I was at the news, but I finally managed to tell
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her how sorry I was for her and the kids. And
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then she said something that I so wasn't prepared
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for. She said, I know you were his hairstylist,
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but he also considered you his friend. And I
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think it's so important for men to have female
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friends. Thank you for being his friend. That
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sentence broke me a few days later. I was listening
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to another CD he had made me. It was the band
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Monsters of Folk and their song Ahead of the
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Curve. I was listening to the chorus and the
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chorus said, I wrote this down, I'm staying above
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the flat line. I'm ahead of the curve. Take a
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piece of the sunshine with me on an all-night
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drive to another world. It's a perfect description
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of the wonderful human I knew and how I witnessed
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he lived his life. The psychology term savoring
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is often discussed as a way to deepen happiness.
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But it also explains why certain ordinary details
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become so emotionally powerful after someone
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passes away. Reminiscing is not simply replaying
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the past. It's really allowing an experience
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to produce meaning in the present. The handwritten
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label on a CD, it becomes more than just handwriting.
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His phrase, I can't believe it's already been
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six weeks, becomes more than a salon conversation.
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And a story about a sandwich becomes evidence
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of how someone has lived their life. For a while
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after he passed, I thought I saw Lauren out of
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the corner of my eye, driving, walking down the
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street. And that sadness would overtake me again.
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And it didn't lift until after I went to the
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gathering of his celebration of life. I sat in
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a room with about a hundred people, maybe a little
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less. I'm not sure. It was many, many people,
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people who loved him. And I was lucky enough
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to hear about the man I had known every six weeks
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appear in story after story. His warmth, his
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curiosity, humor, and generosity, all of which
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I experienced behind the chair, had reached everyone
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in that room in entirely different parts of his
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life. His fellow deadheads got up and told funny
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stories of youthful debauchery on the road. Others
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shared song lyrics that captured his essence.
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His coworkers spoke about his generosity. One
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of his friends even threw Loren under the bus
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because he gifted him hundreds of cassettes from
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his music collection, none of which were labeled.
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It drew a lot of laughter in that room. That
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day I realized I had thought of myself as the
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one providing the space in my salon. I was the
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hairstylist, listening to the stories, asking
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questions, right? Giving him a place to show
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up every six weeks. What I didn't understand
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until that day was that Loren was making space
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for me too. In that room, I realized he had done
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it for all of us. He asked better questions than
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me and challenged my lazy opinions without humiliating
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me or anyone else. He brought music to me. He
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brought kindness. And appointment after appointment,
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he showed me that an ordinary life becomes way
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more vivid when we're willing to show up for
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it. So even though I don't have another six -week
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appointment with him, I do have his way of noticing.
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Maybe that's how people remain with us. Not only
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what we remember about them, but in what they
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taught us to see. When I catch myself mentally
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halfway into tomorrow, I think of Loren sitting
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in the back of that deli, the sandwich in front
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of him and the noise of strangers around him.
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And I reflect on the lesson that he taught me,
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that an ordinary moment is not what we pass through
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while we're waiting for life. It is our life.
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That's one of the ways we carry people. I'm Evet
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DeCota. If this story resonated with you and
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you'd like to reach out to me, you'll find all
23:27
my information in the episode's notes. Thank
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you for listening. Have a great day.