Hey guys, welcome to the channel this is Erik Johnson, doing a little journal Asperger’s today, to talk about a few things – about asperger’s man humbled. You know, people with Asperger’s they usually know they’re self centered they think about themselves. And it’s not like a bad thing. It’s just fight or flight. We want to protect ourselves. And, we just focus on our needs and it’s hard for us to have compassion and empathy for others.
This last year has been really humbling for me. And it’s good because I didn’t want to hide behind money because last year, probably two years ago I was making good money. I had a home business and was doing videos like this but it was for a different as for my home business channel. And, you know there’s a part of me that I just wanted to take the money and run, and basically hide out, in my little mansion of a place, and look down on people. I didn’t want to be bothered by people. It’s like I got money. And I was like, I instantly wanted to isolate more. Okay. And I had a little bit of attitude.
This last year has been really humbling. Because I’ve lost that business. You know I went from making $8,000 a month to making about $800 a month in less than a year. And what that’s taught me is that I need other people in my life that it’s not about money. And yeah, you hear that cliche all the time money doesn’t make you happy and all this stuff. But I’m taking it a step further and saying that it’s really about creating memories with people.
If you gave me a choice between memories and money. I would have to say memories. There’s people that I used to work with in the restaurant business. Misha and I used to work in resorts. And they had restaurants there where Misha was the waitress and I was a cook. And there’s people that would come in. It was seasonal so they’d come in for only six months but they would save all their money. And then the other six months when they weren’t working they were creating experiences, they would travel the world, they would go to South America they would go on hiking trips or kayaking trips or whatever, but they knew that they knew the value of memories and experiences.
Because when I get money. I just want to hide in my mansion. And I want to isolate. And I know that God has a bigger plan for me. It’s just my ego, and it’s my insecurity that makes me want to hide and not talk to people, but you know looking back if you look back at your memories probably most of those memories were you experiencing something fun with somebody else. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a memory of you being alone. You know, sure, you could do great things alone. But I bet 90% of those memories are stuff you did with people.
And so last year, here’s the thing is, tomorrow is a big day in history, political history, I’m not gonna say it. You know what it is. This is January 19, 2021, and you know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. I don’t have to say it. The whole world is going to change. And so most of the people that I’ve been watching about this event, are people that pray a lot, they’re connected to a higher power.
And you know there’s a lot of people with Asperger’s that might not really believe in a higher power, and it’s kind of sad because I’ve seen miracles happen. And it’s just a beautiful thing. I mean there’s really no point in living if you don’t really believe in a higher power, that’s just my opinion. I’m not saying you know go out and get a higher power tomorrow. I’m just saying that things have been so crazy that the only thing we really do have right now is a higher power. It’s not going to be other people that save us.
Okay. So I guess that’s one topic. Another topic is, you know, we live in North Carolina right now and the heart here is incredible. The people are so generous. And they truly are alive. You could really see the joy in their eyes. For example, we are leaving in two weeks but we didn’t have enough firewood to get us to the end of the month before we left. And our heater, our electric heater, our power bill is like seven to $8 a day, just running a 1500 watt heater. And it is kind of a ripoff because the electric companies here run on a monopoly so they can charge whatever they want.
But this guy I ordered some wood from a local. And I have ordered wood from him a couple times, and he’s a Christian. And you know, last week, he was like yeah I might not have any more wood for you So good luck and I’ll talk to you later. But then I texted him today. I was like, could you just spare a half a truckload for 50 bucks. And I was waiting for him to say no but he was like, Sure thing. I’ll be over in an hour. I was like, great. We’re in town right now. We won’t be there for at least an hour. He’s like, no problem.
And we got back, and he had come into our driveway, pulled up to the woodpile in like a foot of snow in his Toyota truck stacked the wood, and then he offered to bring more wood if we ran out for free. And I don’t know what happened to him, he must have had a change of heart or he must know our situation, you know we’re kind of snowed in. I mean I couldn’t believe that he offered wood for free.
Asperger’s Man Humbled
And so it really humbled me I almost felt like crying. And as we got home and he was leaving and so I introduced him to Misha, and he has a great country accent you know from North Carolina. And he’s like, I say words funny and Misha laughed and he was a gentleman who made us laugh. And he’s like, if you ever need wood again before you go. I’ll bring down a day’s worth or two days worth for free, it doesn’t matter. And I literally had tears in my eyes. I couldn’t believe it.
The amount of compassion. And, you know, the people here are the type of people that help their neighbors. And everyone helps each other. People still wave on the street. I wave to cars on this street. And everyone waves back. Old Men are talking on the porches. There’s still old country stores that are running. And so, we might come back here for retirement, but what we want to do is basically good to Costa Rica, maybe go to a meditation retreat. Give away most of our stuff and just meditate six hours a day, they pay for everything, the food, the lodging.
My ego didn’t want to do that. The Asperger’s and I didn’t want to do that. I just want to isolate and I just stopped rocking January 1st. I stopped autistic rocking back and forth. I’ve been doing it since I was eight years old so that’s 40 years of rocking back and forth. Literally with my home business I didn’t have to go anywhere. I rocked from morning until night 14 hours a day. Not kidding. And I calculated that I’ve rocked at least 46,000 hours of my life away, but I don’t have any regret. Because God told me that my mission in life could be this, to help people that are rocking or stimming, or their addicts.
I was addicted to everything. I was addicted to everything because addictions are coping mechanisms. They prevent us from exploring the deep parts of us that we don’t want to look at. So I was addicted to everything from music to sugar to alcohol, you name it, get my hands on it I would take it.
So, life is a trip guys. I’m gonna say that a lot in these videos because life is constantly surprising me. And it might be because I’ve had a few near death experiences that makes life more poignant for me. And now I’m just like, God, I can’t believe I’m still alive. I mean, I had a heart attack when I was 32. I used to get drunk twice a day. I stopped eating food, because I didn’t want it to ruin my buzz.
And now I’m walking in the snow just, you know, talking about good old boys country boys that are Christian. Why is that? When I was 20 I was an angry young man. I wanted to get my dad back for being mean to me. You know, I just wanted to be left alone, alcohol was my lover. Music was my second lover. And with those two lovers, I thought I had this life licked. I thought I had a way to never talk to you guys again.
These last 19 days have really opened up my life, I have less anxiety. I don’t feel fidgety. I don’t even feel like doing anything as far as coping mechanisms go, I really feel like God’s on my side. And I can do it this time. But it’s taken hundreds of relapses, several near death experiences, over 100 jobs, eight girlfriends and hundreds of gallons of booze. And I’m finally at that point where I’m like, Thank you God. Thank you, God, I say that every morning now.
And it could be my age, you know, I’m 48. A lot of people find God when they’re older, but they have to get beaten up a few times, and if you’re still young and you still got a lot of anger, that’s fine, you might have to go down the hellish road of self discovery. But there’s always someone out there that’s bigger and badder than you. You’re not gonna win. Life is always going to kick your butt before you kick it.
It’s kind of like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Jack Nicholson thought he could buck the system, the mental health system. And he was just toying around and playing around with them and pretending he was taking the meds and all that stuff. But eventually he got beaten down. And then I think he was a patient after a while.
But everyone was, you know, they were cheering him on. When he was young and cocky they’re like yeah jack. You know, you can escape this mental hospital. A lot of people live through vicariously. And so yeah if your spark is bright and you have passion, and you want to buck the system, have fun doing that, but in the end I think most people get really humbled in that fight for rebellion, for your one minute of glory.
No, go for it you know if you want to. If you want to make waves and fight and be Rage Against the Machine, then go for it, but eventually I think you’ll realize that it’s a lot of wasted energy. And there’s better ways to focus your energy. You just have to go down your own path.
Now, I’m just like thank you God I can’t believe I’m still here. Even my parents are still alive. My dad’s going to be 80 next year. And we’re really good friends now. Could I live under his roof? Probably not. He’s still bullheaded. I’m still bullheaded. But I love him tremendously, because I spent 30 years, probably 20 years I spent being super angry at him. I spent so much energy rebelling against them. And now, since I made amends, to him over I think 15 years ago when I was young. No, 20 years ago, when I made amends to him, the only reason I made amends was because the anger was eating me alive. I really loved him. I didn’t want to admit it but I really loved him. And I really wanted his acceptance.
I see a lot of guys like that work so hard to impress their dads. They won’t admit it. It’s a subconscious thing. But they work so hard they excel in business, they excel everywhere they get the hot wife, they get the really cool cars, the big house, and they’re all kind of doing it just to make their dad go, you know, son. I’m really proud of you. That’s what they’re all waiting for, probably 90% of them. And yeah, it’s a great motivation to please your dad, I do it still today. I want him to be like, wow, I’m really proud of you, son.
Even when he does say he’s proud of me I’m still like I still don’t believe it. And I think it comes down to, you have to believe in yourself because you’re not gonna feel fully justified. Even if your dad or mom say I’m proud of you, you have to really find it for yourself. And I didn’t find it, making money with my home business. I find it by the little gestures, the little sweet things that we do for people like holding a door open for someone, it’s I think it’s the little things that we’re going to see when we go to the other side. After this life, God’s gonna show us it was the little sweet things we did for people, that’s what really matters. That is the currency of this universe, it’s called love.
It’s not millions of dollars. You can’t take that to the other side. So I’m all about collecting memories now. And, and I want to connect with people again, I really want to connect with people again, and collect memories with people, people laughing, people loving my company. And I’m loving their company.
That’s how it was in my 20s before I became drunk. I had some good friends. We used to laugh a lot. I used to laugh a lot in childhood. Laughter is when you know they say that joy is higher than love on the vibration scale. Because when you laugh when it’s a full on belly laugh, don’t you feel instantly alive and excited? It is a loving action. laughter is love in action. And that’s what I am going after. I am tired of isolating. I am tired of being bitter. I am tired of avoiding people.
You know God put us here as a community of people, we’re supposed to have tribes and be connected, not isolated. So, I’m really changing my tune. And that’s good because we probably changed our tune dozens of times throughout a lifetime so it doesn’t even really matter, so hang in there guys leave a comment if you’re, you know what stage you are in life, are you still the rebel, or are you humble. Well what humbled you, you know, what’s gone on in your life that humbled you or do you still think you’re the biggest fish in the room, leave a comment, and we’ll talk to you soon.
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