SPEAKER_00 0:00

Pancakes and grudges? Did we just we just started a restaurant? Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention, and cause us to wonder, what and why? I'm Ross, your host. My special guest for this episode is an old friend, and someone who likes tight-fitting devil costumes, scary movies, and ska music. It's Rob. Hello, Rob.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Never gonna be able to run for any political office because on the internet is my fat foot in a devil costume.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

And you look fabulous. Welcome, Rob, and welcome to all of you. Thanks for supporting the show. We appreciate you. We've done about 75 of these things. Wow. Yeah, like what happened? We did 75 shows, something like that. It's a lot of shows. That is a lot of shows. This is about the time where it would be great for you if you like what we're doing. There's two things. One, reach out to us and tell us so we keep going, or and or share the show with someone you think might like it, someone who has the same sensibilities that you have. That would be very helpful. I'll mention that again at the end, but I want to get started. Rob, uh, we know that we humans sometimes form and hold grudges. Yeah. We also know that we are often told that holding grudges is bad for us. It hurts us more than it hurts the person we're mad at. So I want to start. I'm gonna I want to start. I want to ask your opinion. I want to ask your reaction. So I'm gonna say a sentence, and I want you to give me your honest, instant feedback, your honest, instant reaction in the moment without thinking about what you should say. And here we go. The sentence is grudges are good.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I I think, yeah. I think uh grudges are great.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

I somehow I knew that you were gonna feel this way. Why do you think they're good?

SPEAKER_01 2:20

For me, it if I hold a grudge, it keeps me going, it keeps me from going back to a well where I can get hurt. You know, like you know, if something happened to me, like this guy is just, you know, this guy's being a a jerk and he's he's coming at me with whatever event occurred, you know. If I have this grudge deep down inside me, like, you know, and it's just something that just it builds up, it builds up my strength, my personal character, my defenses. I feel like they're a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah, I've heard other people that I've talked to in preparation for this episode. Other people have said it's sort of a source of strength. Yeah. Now, do you tend to hold grudges or do you tend to address them and therefore take care of them before they become toxic?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Oh no, I hold on to them for the longest time. Like sometimes like I'll lay down at night and then like my brain will remind me, oh, by the way, you're pissed at this person from 15 years ago. So don't forget that. Yeah. So I hold them.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

I hold them for a very long time. But I'm wondering if a one comes to mind that you could tell us about without uh incriminating anyone in your household.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Ross, I've got one about you. I knew it.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

This is also the reason I wanted you to talk about this because I knew somehow I would figure into this, and we all need to learn. So please share that story.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

So, I mean, and your listeners are gonna listen to this and they're gonna be like, Wow, this is the thing that Rob's holding on to. I have never been able to let it go. Okay we were we were sitting in a bar one night uh uh uh after improv. We did some improv together. Right. And um having the beverages with some friends, yes, and the conversations about ceiling fans arose. And I you know, maybe it was maybe it was so you're already like he's still holding on to this?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

No, I really I had just had forgotten. I had guessed I was thinking of something, but it wasn't. But go ahead. Ceiling fans.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

We were I it probably was alcohol fueled, maybe uh one part that anyway. And the conversation, and this was a legit, at least on my part, argument. Do ceiling fans rotate clockwise or counterclockwise? And I was I was getting irritated, and then at one point you said the following thing, which then probably was the line that was like, if it came from oh boy, to I'm gonna hold a grudge. You looked at me and goes, Rob, I just love the way your mind works. I was like, oh my god, oh my god. So since then, whenever I look at a ceiling fan and ponder which way is it actually turning, clockwise or counter- and and to be to be fair, I don't remember what I what my point on that was. Was it clockwise, counterclockwise? I don't remember, but I remember at the time I was very avid that I knew the answer. So um that is uh that's something I've held on to. And this happened, I mean, 10, 15 years ago, Ross. How long ago did this happen?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Well, 10 years probably at least. Um, but I do remember that. Um, I I if I haven't apologized, I want to apologize right now in front of everyone. Yeah, I'm sorry uh that I appeared to be, I guess you uh thought I was being sarcastic.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

That's maybe condescending. Maybe condescending.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah. I I will say in my I will just say in my defense is that I actually wasn't being condescending. I was trying to be genuine, but because I'm probably condescending other times, it's hard to tell. It's hard to tell when I'm being genuine and sincere. But I And it's not lost on me.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Again, we were arguing about the rotation of a ceiling fan. Like it doesn't have that matter.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

The thing though is that grudges, I think that's what makes a great grudge. Um, I come from a family of grudge holders. Like everybody in my family right now has an active grudge against somebody else. Right now. Right now. Like we could interview any of them and they'd say, Well, I am pissed off about this. So uh so my dad was a big grudge holder. Italians in general are big grudge holders, like, you know, they'll hold a grudge forever. Like once you were out, and nobody ever addressed it. It was just like a silent understanding, that guy is out. And we're not talking to him anymore. You know, I come by it naturally. I like the I like the feeling of a grudge. It's very intense. Do you have an active grudge? Oh, I have all kinds of grudges. Well, you know, I remembered while you were talking, I I have a little a little grudge against you, actually, my friend. Can't can't be possible. Yeah, you know, it it had slipped my mind for a while, but before I tell you what it is, I just have to say I was thinking, you know, I just try to apologize to you for my transgression against you, which you're still holding on to. And I realized that I didn't actually fully apologize. It went on the defensive right away. And I think you deserve an unqualified apology. And here it is. All right. I apologize for being condescending about the ceiling fan. Thank you, Ross, for saying that. There it goes. Um, and I just want you to remember it's unqualified. So I was thinking, um, I remembered that there was uh two or three occasions where you had a car that was always going into the shop for some reason. Don't know why. Okay. And on at least two occasions that I remember, you called on me, your faithful friend, to either take you to the shop or pick you up there or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Which all right, which I did. Then some months or years later, I found myself in need of a ride to the shop for my own car. Yeah. And I called on Rob thinking that you would understand my, you know, my need. And I can't remember what you said when I asked you to give me a ride to the shop. So I'm just gonna paraphrase what my memory remembers, and that is something like, I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

No, shut up.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

And so I I had that's my I am I'm holding a little grudge. I for almost forgot about it.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

I don't know that that happened the way that you remember it happened. Well, maybe you said, What gives you the idea that I would ever give you words? I don't, I can't remember the exact words. No, I mean, I probably was busy. I mean, uh, don't you think I was busy when you were asking me for work? Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe you were. If I could have, I would have.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

I just couldn't. For reasons.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

So, okay, so we're both holding, we're both holding a little grudge. We're even.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Well, I I mean, okay. I mean, I'm sorry that I did not take you to uh pick up your car or drop off a car or something of that nature.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

I've told you before about the spanking grudge when I was uh a kid and some other kid induced me to punch his painting, and a teacher came on the scene thinking I was acting out, which I normally would have been, but I really wasn't. I was just complying with a request to punch a painting. And the teacher thought I was being aggressive, so she came up and just spanked the crap out of me. And I peed my pants because I really had to go. And when somebody spanks you and you have to pee, you know, it's hard to hold it. So I have a grudge against that person, but I don't even know who that was. Like I don't know the name. I don't, they're probably not alive anymore.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

But I hold a grudge. So for me, when on the most part, um if if if they're not a certain tier friend and I get a grudge, I write them off. Like I just I I just disassociate with them and write them off. I don't know why I do that. I mean, there's been a lot of occasions that I'm friendly with someone and then they do something that rubs me wrong, and I'm like done. So is there let's let's flip it for a second. Do you flip it? Do you know if someone has a grudge against you? I can't other than other than ceiling fans.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Well, you know, I thought you held a grudge. I forgot about the ceiling fan. I still feel like you're holding a grudge for smearing cake on your game cards.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Oh, I don't care about that.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

That was funny. That's a Ross.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

That's just a Ross thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Oh, wow. Oh, I'm sure there's any number of people with grudges because, you know, when I was younger, I had sort of an outsized slash impulsive personality. And so I was constantly uh doing things and I wasn't always fully tuned into other people at that time. And so I'm I imagine there's tons of people with grudges. I want to tell you that um, you know, the experts, the all the people who say you shouldn't hold grudges, right? They're all telling us that it can hurt us by causing us distress. So built-up resentment and fury can lead to aggression, negativity, you can have mental health problems, you can have all kinds of physical, cardiovascular digestion, stomach stuff, reproduction stuff. It can keep you from reproducing. Oh, wow. Um, or you can use it as an excuse. Maybe it interrupts your sleep, it can uh impact your immune system, you can get headaches, you can have memory problems, decision-making issues, perception issues. It can have all kinds of social uh consequences, it can ruin relationships or create problems with family members. See my family, you'll see all of that.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Well, what is the answer to this, though? Like, don't hold grudges, like just stop holding a grudge.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Well, I just think this I wanted to run this by you because I think they're I think grudges are good, but I also think there's you have a choice on what to do. So let me give you, let me tell you the three reasons why I think grudges are good. First of all, I didn't read this, but I'm assuming, like a lot of our other sort of reflexive reactions to the world, that at one time grudges had evolutionary significance. I can see that. So, yeah, if you're in a group and somebody's stealing your dyno meat, you know, and you're like, hey, dude, you stole my dyno meat, and the guy's like, Oh, I don't care, I'm hungry. And you say, Oh, that's okay, I forgive you, like they tell us to, your genes aren't gonna make it that far, right? That's right. The genes that are gonna keep passing down are the dyno meat guy. So I think that's one of the things is like at some at some early stage of our development, it was a way of um keeping people compliant with group norms, you know, and keep them, you know, from you know, violating the expectations of the group. Because ultimately, that's what causes a grudge when somebody violates your expectations. Right. They betray your expectations, they are not doing what you think they should do, they're talking about a ceiling fan when they shouldn't be talking about a ceiling fan, and they are annoying. Okay, so grudges must have had some benefit back in the day. Second, I think they're good if they motivate you to deal with the person, like you're dealing with me today. If it motivates you to kind of talk to the person and say, hey, when you did this, it bugged me.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

I feel like that's not a grudge though, right? Like a grudge, when I think of a grudge, it's something that I bury deep inside me and I ruminate on and I'm just angry about it. Like I I don't know that a grudge has ever made me go, I'm gonna talk to him about it, but maybe it does.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Well, I'm saying it it's it could be good uh if it motivates you to deal with. I think a lot of people don't do that. But I think that if that if you recognize, gee, I'm really burning up about this, I'm really mad about this betrayal, and I'm gonna talk to this person, assuming you can and it's safe to do so. I'm gonna talk to this person. My point there is even if it doesn't go well, you go tell the person and they just say, I don't care, you know, or they don't apologize, or they just don't deal with it very well, or they continue to criticize you, or whatever. At least you tried, and I think that reduces a little bit of the negativity that you experience because you you tried to deal with it. Right. The last reason I think they're good, and this is actually my main reason, which is a little weird. I came up with this thing that I call that I'm calling a pure authentic feeling. Okay. A path. Is path a sex thing? I don't want to say a sex thing and not know it.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Well, I was getting ready to say that you should copyright it, but now I'm worried that it's like a sex thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Okay, let's but you don't recognize it right off the bat, and you usually know all the things. That's my bag. Yeah, okay. So a pure authentic feeling, right? So those are hard to come by. So here's an example. I've got two or three simple examples. One, this is the simplest example, it's more physical than anything else. You're in your house alone, you're walking along barefoot, and you stub your toe as hard as you can. In that moment, you're not worried about how what you say or how much you scream, there's nobody around to hear you. So you can just let it all hang out. You can experience that pain just the way you want to, as opposed to like if you're in church or something and you gotta suck it in. Or not. Um, so that is an example of a pure authentic feeling. Or let's say you get a text and your partner is dumping you and you didn't see it coming. So that feeling in that exact moment is like, wow, it's intense, right? Yeah. It doesn't have to be negative, though. It could be something positive, like you get a raise or a new job, or something that just comes out of the blue, and you just have this, you're just immersed in this feeling. Those are pretty rare. And a grudge is a great example of a delicious, purely authentic feeling. I mean, there's nothing more juicy than a grudge, a really solid grudge, even if it's silly, it doesn't matter. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

You know, I'm I'm processing what you're saying, and you know what dictates that juicy feeling in your mind? Like for me, I you know, I have it in my head and it's just sitting there, but like it's is it uh over time it it might get worse and worse, or it just might dictate your actions going forward. But is are you saying that the initial, as soon as you're like, all right, this is a grudge, that's that feeling, that's the authentic feeling you're talking about?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

I just think that whole feeling of injustice is so pure and rich with feeling. It's just great. Even though it's negative and they tell us, you know, we shouldn't hold on to it. It just, it's just as a human being, you know, we just don't get too many unmediated experiences because we're always, you know, our our feelings and experiences are often moderated by the fact that we're around other people or there's expectations about how we're gonna behave, or you know, whatever it might be. And a grudge is just an example of it, just feels very primal to me. And I just kind of like the feeling. And again, you know, I come from a long line of grudge holders, and so it to me, it feels like a natural way to be.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

I'm gonna be honest, I wish I didn't hold grudges, like it does. I mean, I feel like it's a positive thing, but there is a lot of negative to it, too. There is, yeah. And, you know, people will come to me and they're like, oh, you're still been out of shape about that? Let it go. And you're just like, Man, I wish I had one of those personalities that I could just not turn the other cheek, but just let it go, man. It's not that big of a deal in the big scheme of things. I'm not like that. I hear people say that and I get angry, but it's just like, I wish I were, I wish I were like that, like where I could just let it go.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, you know, Jesus said to turn the other cheek. I just um, you know, I just don't feel that way most of the time. Uh here are some personality characteristics of people who tend to hold grudges. It's not necessarily flattering to either one of us. These aren't all, these aren't, you know, you don't necessarily have these, but they're the kinds of things that turn up. Okay, so people with low self-esteem, poor coping skills, short tempers tend to be more likely to hold a grudge. People who are jealous, sensitive, irritable, immature, have impulse control issues, maybe more apt to holding grudges. That sounds like my Tinder bio. A cultural, like as I said, growing up with it, your parents, you know, the environment you live in, there might be a genetic contribution. All contribute to holding resentments. And research suggests that people who are more empathetic, they're more resilient, they have uh a better ability to sort of self-regulate their feelings, they have good coping skills, they're less likely to hold grudges.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Oh boy, man. Every time I do one of these podcasts with you, it's a lot of self-reflection. I'm about 95% on that list that you just read out.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Me too. They say if you um people who do regular exercise tend to be more likely to forgive and feel more um flexible when it comes to dealing with other people.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

I don't know. I do I, you know, for a big chunky guy, I do exercise a lot. So I don't know if that's true.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

And and uh yeah, I mean, these are all things, you know, how these things, these lists are created, and they're it's not it's you know, is it correlation or causation, you know? Right. Um is it is it being doing exercise cause you to feel more forgiveness, or are people who are more likely to forgive more likely to exercise? Yeah, you know, who knows? But these are all different factors, and I recognize some things in there that pertain to me for sure. And as I say, some people may just be wired that way, you know. However, it is, and when they are you know experience a betrayal, they react with more sensitivity than other people.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

So, how unhealthy are grudges in the romantic side of your life? So, you know, and you've been married a couple times. That we know of that you know of. Um did a grudge ever cause strife in any of your relationships?

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Yeah, I mean, um I think my first marriage was about 92% grudge. Uh but who's keeping track. So, yeah, I mean, so there was that. And that was went both ways. By the way, I was talking to someone who's involved in uh Alcoholics Anonymous, and they I was talking about grudges, and they say, Yeah, in the Alcoholics Anonymous community, they're uh they deal a lot with resentment and feelings of resentment, and that would drives a lot of people to abuse alcohol and uh and drugs and so forth. And so, anyway, we were talking about this was very interesting, but then they said um they used to go to a meeting on Sundays called Hot Grudge Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Oh, I'd said that's something I'd like to go to, actually.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

No, it's not a great because you go and you take turns, everybody gets to say what they're mad about and who they're holding a grudge against. I said, Oh my god, this would be great.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

I love it. I imagine pancakes are involved too. Like I feel like pancakes and grudge talk. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Pancakes and grudges, did we just we just started a restaurant? Dude, I've never heard of a restaurant. This is so wait a minute, this is brilliant. I love it. Let's do it. Instead of giving kids those coloring pages, we give them like uh paper to blank paper. They can write their grudges against their parents, and the parents take turns standing up and using a like a bullhorn. I love it. And then everybody gets pancakes so that it ends in a positive way. Okay. Wow, I'm so glad. It's so great when you invent something and you know it's gonna work, and we're gonna be rich. Yep, I love it. What everybody says is you're supposed to talk to the person if you can. That's gonna be the most healthy thing to do. Um, and I've really been focusing on that over the last few years, just dealing with people directly when I can, when I when I have a disappointment. But I I think there are three, I think there are three things you can do when somebody betrays your expectations. Um, ideally, in the ideal world, you would process it somehow, either by talking to the person or talking to a friend, or going to a therapist, whatever you can do to work it through, that's going to be the healthiest thing. The other thing which I think that I've been doing for many years is that as soon as somebody betrays an expectation that I have that I think is significant, whatever it is, big thing, little thing, medium thing, I reframe the relationship. I instead of saying the person's bad because they didn't pick me up at the airport, even though I picked them up at the airport, when it was my turn to be picked up, they couldn't be bothered. Instead of like holding a grudge, I just say, this isn't the kind of friendship we have. It's not the friendship where the person reciprocates things. And when you reframe it, then you stop expecting. It doesn't mean you can't be their friend, you can still hang out with them, but it changes it.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Let's say Mr. Airport calls you to pick him up. Do you do it?

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Well, you mean after he's already betrayed?

SPEAKER_01 25:44

No, yeah, after you've reframed the friendship.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

No, because then we we don't have that kind of relationship because otherwise that's a now now I'm a servant or something. I'm a taxi driver.

unknown 25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

I feel like by saying reframe, you just reframed the word grudge.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Like you still have that grudge. Well, it's more to me, it's it's information. So part of the reason I uh so if you go back to my premise, the reason there are grudges is because we have an expectation that's been unmet. Uh, I see. Clearly, not all expectations are realistic. Not everybody can live up to your expectations, even though you may have decided in your own mind that they have all of these qualities and they're going to do the things you expect them to do. When people don't do those things, it's important to pay attention to that. And instead of being mad at them and trying to correct their behavior or get them to do something, it's easier just to say, oh, they're not that kind of person. They're not the kind of person I can count on. Maybe they'll do something for me sometime, but I'm not going to count on them. I see. And I'm not going to be that kind of now. I can choose, I can still totally bend over backwards for them if I want. It's not healthy, I think. And instead, I think you can then recalibrate how you behave with that person. And it doesn't mean you can't be their friend. They can still hang out with them, but you now have reduced expectations. So that's another thing you can do. And then the third thing, which you and I, I think, agree on is you can hold tight to that grudge forever. Now, I was reading something that um I thought was actually a good idea because they were saying, like, how do you know if your grudge is stupid? No, I want to hear this. I want to find out how many of mine are dumb. Imagine a friend is coming to you with this grudge and telling you about it and acting all upset about it.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Oh, shut up about ceiling fans, Rob.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah, what would you say? So, like, imagine something I come to you and I'm saying, hey, I've got this rand, blah, blah, blah, ceiling fan, ceiling fan. What would you think about that? Would you think that was legit, or would you be like, Nah, I would be, I I would be like, let it go.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

But then if my friend goes, and then get this, Rob, and then he said, I like the way your mind works. Okay, okay, maybe that could have I could see how that rubbed you wrong. The ceiling fans start though. That's dumb. Let that go.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Maybe he gave you a wink when he said it.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

All right, I feel like my friend that I'm talking to about this is not taking me seriously, so I'm gonna stop talking to him. No, now it's double, you double grudged. I double grudged.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Oh man, that's perfect. So, yeah, so that's I thought that was a kind of a good idea because there's a lot of them where we really work up a lot of negative feelings about something that if somebody else brought it to us, we'd be like, no, this isn't this isn't a huge thing. And this happens a lot in my family where people come to me for some reason and they'll say, I'm really steamed about person X because they did this and this. And a lot of times they're just like, Yeah, I don't really think that's a thing. Like, that sounds like it's there's obviously something that has to be addressed, but I, you know, you don't need to get so steamed about some of these things. Um, and then of course, you can actually tell a friend that's not involved about it and get their feedback. So you can imagine telling a friend or a friend telling you, and then you can actually tell somebody. One thing about holding grudges is we it's all internal, it's sort of a vicious circle of, you know, it just gets worse and worse, and we sometimes catastrophize, we sometimes exaggerate what happened. We also do a lot of, you know, we we always seem to know exactly why the person did what they did and what was motivating them. That's always a big part of it, right? Yeah. And it's use usually based on the idea that we think, you know, they are think less of us somehow, or they don't care about us, when really it could just be simple thoughtlessness, right? Which is a little different. Still not great, but they're not actually trying to hurt us.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yeah, you gotta change the motive about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, I can see that. They say we should uh consider. I I just this stuff does not resonate with me. I gotta tell you up front, but they said one of the things you can do is accept what happened and your feelings about it. Well, I'm already doing that. That's what the grudge is. I'm accepting that I'm pissed off.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

They didn't expound upon that at all. Like, what is that? Like, uh okay, they're just like, uh, just acknowledge your feelings. Okay, that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing. I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

I I think it's more like, okay, this happened. It's not the end of the world, let's move on. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

I think it's what they're saying is like, you know, think about it and then let it go. Like hit it and leave it. Like, you just okay, this is what this is my feelings, they're legitimate feelings, and now I'm gonna like I don't I can't do that. I can't just like I'm gonna let it go. But I think that's what they mean. I mean, maybe not, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Right. Well, I think part of it is you have to be the kind of person who's set up to do this in the first place. I think it's really hard just to give this advice to somebody like me who likes having a grudge and likes to think about the ways I'm gonna get revenge. You know, because I like to think about that stuff. You know, that whole thing about a revenge is a dish, best served, cold. Yeah. Like I like that long con. I like that long game, like let's wait five years, and then one day, uh uh, one day, this person will wake up with a ceiling fan in their bed. That was in The Godfather. So, um, famous movie, look it up. So uh they also say consider your own role in what you could have and might do differently. Oh, I hate that. Get out of my face with that. Yeah, it's because it's like, yeah, you're partly to blame. It takes two to try and go. I get it. I get it. How about this one? Cultivate empathy for yourself and the target of your grudges. Because the whole thesis is the grudge hurts you more than it hurts them. Like you sitting there burning uh at night in your bed and just like flames coming out of your skin because you're so pissed off, smoke coming out of your ears and all that jazz. That's not hurting me. Right. When you're thinking about me at bed at night, because I'm not even imagining you're thinking about me in bed. Well, I mean, you are you are now. If you thought about me when you were going to the bathroom, that would make sense to me. So cultivate empathy. You can write a letter to that you never mail. Oh, I hate that too.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Like, I I just stop. Stop. Like, I don't know, yeah, I don't want to write a letter that I'm never gonna send. If I write a letter, I'm putting it in the mail and not even like sometimes I'll send an email, and and uh my wife is always like, uh, maybe you shouldn't send that email yet. Like, maybe you should just like let it sit for a day. No, no, no, no, it's fresh. I want to get it out now.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Press send right now. Hey, send now, regret it later.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah, I don't spell check it, I just get it out.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Oh man, that can be dangerous. So a lot of religious teaching, not just Christianity, not just Jesus, but Buddhists and Hindus and other folks have talked about, you know, the the wisdom of letting things go, to forgive, to turn the other cheek. It's a kindness to yourself, to be forgiving. It's not just kindness to the other person. You're actually giving yourself a break because you're removing the stress. I came across this quote that I knew you would like. Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Uh I don't like that. Here's my problem with all of this. Like, like, it's like you need to do these things. That's like telling someone, hey man, calm down. Like that's just not in your that's not in your in in your set. Like you're just you're gonna get angry, you're gonna get revved up, you're gonna make a grudge. Like I don't know that I can actively go, you know what? I forgive you. I forgive you for being condescending with ceiling fans and then walk away from it. Like, that's just not gonna happen. I'm still gonna stew about it. Like something will happen and I'll think about it again. I'm like, ugh, like I can't let it go. I understand what they're saying. Do this, let it, let you know, think about how it hurts you more, blah, blah, blah. I still, it doesn't stop me from thinking about it and holding a grudge. Like, I need there needs to be a there needs to be a non-grudge medication.

unknown 34:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

It's worse for me. It's this is how bad I am. For me, when I hear somebody say that, it makes me mad. Well, makes you makes you mad. What do you mean? Like what? It makes me mad at them. Like somebody says, Well, you know what you really need to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Get out of my face with that. Like, I just don't want to hear that. Because I can't. I can't stop doing it. I'll turn the other cheek and then flip it around and give you the death stick. Like, I I don't know. I have problems with it. I have problems with it, and it's making me mad. I'm holding a grudge, whoever wrote this article.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Exactly. And I think, and I'll I'll include it in the show notes so you can read it yourself and decide whether you're holding a grudge, but I I think that it really goes back to, you know, again, I think we're wired this way from ancient times to, you know, deal with people who stole our dyno meat. Dino meat, yeah. And yes, I know people and dinosaurs didn't live at the same time, but they did freeze the meat, so it was available.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

That's just that's just science. Uh yeah, I have trouble with it. I think if you're set up to be a grudge holder, I think it's really difficult. I I do believe, I have in my own life discovered that when I after I've kind of stewed for a little while, if I do a talk to the person, it almost always gets better. And almost always they were not aware that they were doing the thing that they did. Like they weren't, in their mind, they weren't thinking they were doing anything to hurt me. So it's almost always positive. The other thing that I say, and I have done, is that if assuming assuming that the target of your grudge, the object of your grudge is still on the earth, there's no statute of limitations. You can talk to them days, months, years, decades later, and say, you know, I always kind of had a little issue about this thing. And you may not remember it, but I want to tell you about what happened, and I want to tell you how I feel. I don't think that's gonna end well, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Because you're gonna find out you're gonna find out how insignificant that event was to that person, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Well, of course.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

And that that's gonna make it worse.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Well, maybe but I think I think just the act of telling somebody about your hurt, your bit your feeling of betrayal, or how they let you down, and why you're holding a grudge and why you have anger, I think just doing that, doing that usually makes me feel better, even if the person is like, I really don't care, dude. I don't even remember you. You know, I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna report back. I'm gonna try it and see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Who are you gonna try it with? I don't know. I don't know. I gotta go through my long list of grudges. Like, I, you know, I I I've got a bunch. I'm gonna try it with someone and I'm gonna let you know what happens. Do you have a grudge against your child?

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Have you come up with no absolutely not? You act surprised like that could never happen. People, children, and parents, come on. That's the old.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

I don't know. She I've gotten so lucky with my child. I imagine when she gets older, you know, and she's like, I hate my dad. Well, they'll there'll be a grudge, but right now she's just a perfect kid. Like, I I don't know. I can't uh no. But I can't even I can't even get my mind around having a grudge against my kid.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Well, they'll have like I have one kid who will not let go the fact that I put a burning marshmallow in her eye.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Yeah, well, that that seems hurtful. I mean, she has a patch now, but you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

But I didn't do it on purpose, and I apologized after we got the flames out. Yeah. I mean, she can't she can't grow an eyebrow now, but whatever. It looks kind of cool, I think. It's better than a tattoo. Nobody else has one just like that. That's true. That's true. I went through a phase where it seemed like everybody I know was moving, but they didn't want to pay for movers. So it's like, hey, we're moving. Can you come over and help? We'll give you pizza. And I was I was older, you know, I was older than that, and I was like, just can you just like hire a truck? Like, I don't want to, but anyway, I would show up. So one guy is like, yeah, we're moving. You know, can people come over and help? And we'll have pizza after. So I show up. There's one other guy, everybody else bails. It's me and one guy and the guy who owns the house, and we're moving his entire house.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

I think I know okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

And we're pulling crap out of the basement. I don't even know what it is. It's like 500 pounds of some kind of weird equipment, yanking it upstairs. I mean, it's like professional mover stuff, and uh, I'm not that. So we move, we get all the stuff in the truck. So we we spend hours grabbing all this junk and stuffing it into one of those rental trucks. I bet you that pizza was amazing. And uh we kind of come in where he's sitting in the kitchen now, and he's kind of like sitting there, there's no pizza. And he says, Well, I could call for pizza, but it would probably take a while to get here. I don't know if you still want it. And first of all, I never wanted the pizza, but it was sort of like the principle of the thing. Yeah. Like, come on, I just busted my hump for you. I dragged like 500 pounds of some kind of machine, I don't even know what it was, fat rendering machine. I don't know what the hell this machine was, out of your basement, and you can't get me a slice. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

I've never asked you to come move me, right? Like I'm pretty sure. Yes, you did. I did. Did you share? I moved you.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

I moved you into the house you're in right now.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Oh, hey, thank you for that, by the way. Did I did I buy pizza? I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

I don't think I did. I feel like it balances the um the the uh what's it called? Ceiling fan, the whole ceiling fan thing. It feels like that should balance it out a little bit. That should count in the plus side of the ledger.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Sure, it does. Uh, just as a point of note, I remembered the ceiling fan, but I did not remember you helping me move.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

That's another thing. Oh boy. See, that's another thing that I was reading about, is we tend to forget about all the context and any good thing that the person ever did, and we just dwell on the negative thing. I think it's very interesting. You know, we just forget, you know, like the person donated a kidney to us.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I that's that is interesting. They use my peanut butter, bastards.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

Person's like, but I gave you a kidney.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah, so stay on topic. What have you done for me lately?

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Yeah, this kidney sucks anyway. Um topic. So I think this whole idea of unmet expectations is at the core of it. I think it's a good, I think when somebody lets you down, they're actually giving you a gift of information so you can reframe the relationship. I've said that. But more than anything else, if you want to minimize your grudges, expectation setting, man. That's the key to minimizing grudges. Set expectations as early as possible in any relationship you're in, whether it's a personal relationship, a marriage relationship, child, parent, um, a job relations, any of it. Just get the expectations out there and let people know what you are thinking. Don't keep it a secret because what it is is we just assume that the other person knows exactly what we want. And when they don't give it to us, it's we we're infuriated. We're resentful. We're resentful, and we harbor that resentment and it eats away at us and gives us stomach aches and sleepless nights.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

All right. Well, now I'm officially on the fence about grudges. Are they good? Are they bad? Did I learn anything from this episode? I don't know. Yeah, what did you learn? That grudges and pancakes is not copyrighted. I looked that up on Google, so it is open for us to start.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Oh, we're starting it. I'm getting the seed money right now. Great. Uh it's in my pocket. Got the seed money in my pocket. Um, I you also got an apology, and un I gave you an unqualified apology for I felt like you had to apologize.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Like you, I couldn't just I couldn't just drop all that information down and you walk away from it. You had to apologize.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Well, I didn't have to. I could have made a joke, or I could have qualified it by saying something like, I'm sorry if I said something that offended you. That's the worst kind of apology. That's that's like a non-apology. I'll say I'm sorry if you're so weak that you get your feelings hurt.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Well, thank you for your apology. I acknowledge that you apologized.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Do you think that maybe it'll help you reduce that feeling of uh anger about me? Yes, I think it will. How how well that's good. Um, I don't want you to be, I don't want to be a source of anger at your life in your life unless I've, you know, unless it's something recent.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Yeah, no, there's a ton of stuff. Like you did just one thing and a long line of grudges.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

I was I was surprised that you didn't have a grudge about smearing chocolate cake on your cards. I thought that was something that really bugged you.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

No, uh, I mean that bugged me at the time, but that didn't, that was just that was a I should have known that about Ross kind of thing. Like that's that's on me.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

You would have already you had reframed the relationship ahead of time at that point.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

And you were like interested, I'm interested in playing a board game. I was like, oh, that's unexpected, okay. But no, once it happened, I was like, I knew that. Like I knew if I put my hand inside of the, you know, inside of the hedgehog fence, I was gonna get bit. Like, I get it. Like it's that's my bad. My bad. I wasn't upset about that. Put my expensive board game in cake. It's cool, man.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

It's cool. It was an accident. It was not. We shouldn't have served cake while we were playing the game.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

I'm starting to feel like maybe this is turning into a grudge.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

I think so. I think so. I think that's uh what something else you've learned is that you have more than one active grudge against me. So this hasn't been a waste of your time. You've gotten some therapeutic benefit.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

If it makes you feel any better, I think that's the only active grudge I had. And I'm working through it.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Wow, that's great. And you got the apology. And it was heartfelt and it was unqualified.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

So you just need to write that down in your notes. So I want to thank you for joining me on this episode. I knew you'd be exactly the person to talk to about grudges.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Oh boy. Yeah, I'm I'm I got a lot of self-reflection. Again, another episode uh where I'm gonna like sit down and really think about myself. So um I don't think anything's gonna change, but you know, yeah, at least I can acknowledge that.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

That's what people say is they listen to the show so they can learn about things that you have to work on.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Well, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Yeah, it was great to have you, and thank you everyone for joining us. If you like what we're doing, you can reach out to us on Instagram or send us an email and say, hey, we like what you're doing. Some of you do that, it's great to interact with you. We always respond, we're always delighted to hear from you. Support us on Patreon if you can afford to do that. That's great. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are sitting on a hot bag of grudges or just someone trying to figure out which way that ceiling fan is really turning, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody.