Objective Jerk
Army Veteran Asshole that is learning to love Jesus. I use my MIC / Platform as a form of "Therapy", no schedule, no script, just whatever is floating my boat at the moment.
Objective Jerk
RESILIENCE BEYOND SIGHT: The Kijuan Amey Story
I share an unexpected email exchange with Air Force veteran Kijuan Amey who lost his sight in a motorcycle accident but transformed his tragedy into inspiration through his motto "I have lost my sight, but I did not lose my vision."
• Introduction to Kiwan Aimey, a 10-year Air Force veteran who lost his eyesight in a 2017 motorcycle accident
• Discussion of Kijuan's remarkable journey from military service to founding "Amy Motivation" after his injury
• Reflections on whether it would be more difficult to be born blind or lose sight later in life
• Comparison between losing hearing versus sight and how our preferences might change with age
• Exploration of Kijuan's positive mindset and his upcoming book "Don't Focus on Why Me"
• Personal thoughts on the importance of mental attitude when facing adversity
• Connection with other inspirational stories like Jeremy Renner's recovery from his snowcat accident
• Consideration of how pessimism versus optimism affects our quality of life
If you're looking for inspiration or something positive to focus on instead of the negativity in the world, check out Kijuan Amey's story and his book "Don't Focus on Why Me."
Again, thanks for hanging out with me!
Please feel free to comment or send an email to theobjectivejerk@gmail.com
Hey, what's going on? This is the Objective Jerk. And I am said jerk, how is you, how is you doing? Hope everybody's doing good.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts on Pope Leo XIV? Right, I think that's his name, wasn't the one I was hoping for, but I prayed when doing the rosary, when doing the part that's for the Pope, I did the prayer Our Father, hail, mary and all that, and I just asked for the Pope we need right now, not necessarily the best overall Pope, or even the one that I want, that I think would be a good one. You know which is, which was Sarah. Um, I didn't be like, oh, sarah needs to be the Pope. I just, I just asked for the best one for the church, and you know. So hopefully, this guy will be it. I don't know much about him, though, so we'll find out, but he's the first american, north american, person who's from chicago or born in chicago and stuff, so speaks many languages, um, so we'll see. We'll see. Hopefully, um, hopefully, he turns out to be awesome.
Speaker 1:Anyway, um, this is going to be a little bit longer than I normally do, because I had an individual reach out to me and this is kind of going to be like my version of an interview with somebody. Let me explain. So I I don't do interviews, obviously I'm not. I mean, I've thought about it and I tried once I had a friend and I did one, but it was just it wasn't working right, it didn't sound good. So I'd have to, I have to get the little little programming board or whatever you call it, but I don't know. That's not really kind of what my goal is. You know, it's just selfishly. This is kind of more just for me to kind of get things off my chest. You know, I mean, that's how it is right now. Can it change and can it evolve? Yeah, of course, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:But I get emails or comments all the time about hey, I love your podcast, um, would you like to? I notice you don't have as many viewers. You know I can help you get more. So it's just marketing, trying to get some. You know, so I can pay for people to get some viewers, which would probably be bots and it'd be fake and it's, you know, not like legit viewers. You know, the viewers I have, although some of it is just um videos that come up, like on rumble or something that automatically play people don't actually watch it, you know. But the viewers I do have are organic, you know. They are like what's this dude what? And then listen to it and maybe they like it.
Speaker 1:And I know I would say, I don't know, I probably have about 20 regular listeners. I would guess. You know I have more than that. That comes around and you get, you know, because people maybe let me check out this guy, but I think maybe I have actually, I would say, 20, which is, you know, that's nothing you know, but it's fine for me, that's, you know.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I'm not trying to be the next Rogan or anything like that Just gives me something to do, you know, and I would prefer, I mean, if it was to grow like all of a sudden it did get, you know, somewhat popular, cool, you know. But I think it'd be cool for that to happen organically, you know, which will take longer, but in the end it's like it's not really my goal. I just, you know, the idea of having hundreds and hundreds of emails and requests or all kinds of stuff seems a little like, I don't know, a little overwhelming. You know, right now it's pretty easy, but so I get these emails and these comments about. You know, hey, I can whatever this and that, and they're all pretty much the same thing, except I did get an email from an individual that I you know it wasn't Well here. I'll just read it to you. Let me just kind of, I'll read you the email I got from this guy and then I'll explain more. I don't know why I'm trying to be so like secretive, excuse me. Okay, come on. All right. So I got an email from Kiwan. Amy is his name, but it's spelled K-I-J-U-A-N-A-M-E-Y, so Kiwan Amy. I made sure I found out how to pronounce it before I did this, so I did a little research on them, but I'll get to that later. All right, so I got this email. It says hey, jerk, I hope this message finds you well.
Speaker 1:I've been tuning into your Objective Jerk podcast and the recent episode about Good Friday Mass and your connection with the Quiet Monday services resonated with me. As a fellow veteran who has had his own spiritual journey. I love the opportunity to share my story with your audience. My path from military service to overcoming a life-altering injury embodies perseverance and faith, values that your listeners connect with deeply, sincerely. And he's got a link to a book which I'll talk about a little bit more.
Speaker 1:So, you know, my first thought is like, okay, well, obviously it's not a marketing. I mean this guy's marketing he's. You know he wrote a book. Well, first thing I was like, okay, let me make sure this thing's legit. So there's a link for his book. I'm not going to click on it right away because I don't know. So I don't, you know, look him up, looked him up on Facebook no-transcript. I'm sure it's just because you know I talk, you know I'm a veteran and I talk about faith and stuff and you can see from that email. So, but I'm not, you know, I'm very brash Catholic. I guess you could say I'm still working on it.
Speaker 1:But so here was my response. I was like, hey, thanks so much for reaching out. I'd love to hear your journey, but sadly my podcast is very basic. I don't have the switchboard, nor do I have this setup to have guests. Maybe someday I will, but as for now I can't. I would still love to hear your story and share on my podcast. If you're willing, you can send me a mini bio and I can read it and share my thoughts regarding it. Let me know and look forward to hearing back from you again. Thanks for listening, god bless. Okay.
Speaker 1:So I sent that email, you know, and then he sent one back. He's like I understand I have attached my bio to this email for your usage. Feel free to send me the link to the podcast recording when you finish. Thanks in advance. So cool, you know. So it gives me something to and this is kind of, you know, eventually I would like to do some things like this. I'd like to, you know, maybe someday I'll get a guest, I don't know. Let me know what you think, if you think I think it might ruin my shtick or whatever you want to call it, my niche. I don't know, but we'll see right, okay, but so just a quick thing on this guy.
Speaker 1:So, kiwan Amy. He spent 10 years in the US Air Force. He achieved the rank of Staff Sergeant, but he ended up, you know, losing all that on May 5th 2017, when a motorcycle accident claimed his eyesight. So he had to medically retire. Which sucks, losing your eyesight. So you know, I've had, I've had discussions with people before. What would you and I'm sure you have too, everybody has these Would you rather lose your sight when you're older or be born blind?
Speaker 1:Like, what's the differences and stuff. I always kind of thought having it later, because then you could still know what people are talking about when they're describing it to you. You know what I mean Not to say that like, oh, this guy don't have it that bad, but I don't know. Know, but then you kind of know what you're missing. So then I think psychologically it could affect you worse than if you were just born blind. You know what I mean. I don't know. And then my other question is what would you rather? What do you think would be worse, being deaf or blind?
Speaker 1:When I was younger and I was really into music, I used to think I'd rather be blind, so I can still listen to music, I can fully. I can fully enjoy music in its entirety. You know what I mean, because if you're blind I mean if you're deaf you know you can watch a movie with subtitles, but you're not getting the full effect, you're only getting part of it At least. With music and your hearing you get the full effect. But as I've gotten older, though, I think I've kind of changed my attitude towards that, because music isn't as important to me as it was when I was younger. So I think I would rather be deaf, and so I could still read, you know cause? Then, you know, reading is at just the point in time in my life, you know. So, I don't know, but yeah, so it's gotta be rough. You know being I don't know, mid twenties, maybe even 30, and then losing your eyesight, maybe even 30. And then losing your eyesight. He then focused on a career in academia, earning a degree, and is now a founder and CEO behind Amy Motivation.
Speaker 1:Besides his military career, kiwan is, in a word, a renaissance man with 25 years of drumming, plus onstage acting, and now an upcoming best-selling book entitled Don't Focus on why Me. Formerly serving as the Vice President of the Carolina Regional Group of the Blinded Veterans Association, kiwan is also a mentor and ambassador for the Air Force Wounded Warriors Program. One of Kiwan's mottos is I have lost my sight, but I did not lose my vision. That's not his bio. He sent it. I'll read that here in a minute. So you know immediately, I've got, you know, faith. I mean, I don't know if he's Catholic or not, but you know he's a Christian. He's a veteran, he likes to play the drums, um, but he seems to be a little more optimistic than I am. You know, um, I'm a very pessimistic, cynical kind of person. Like I have optimism, like I hope for it, I'm hopeful but, I don't know, very cynical. But yeah, it would be kind of cool to like talk with this guy, to actually interview. This would probably be my chance to really kind of hone. I don't know, probably be my chance to really kind of hone, I don't know. I should maybe look into getting that. I know it's not, it's not hard to get, especially doing it on, you know, like on a, on a computer. You know just, you don't have to have a person in person, you just have to have a program. They have to be able to have the program, but you have to pay for it monthly and it's just not something that I I guess I could have tried. I don't know, let me see, I'm going to you know, I'm going to post this, obviously, and if maybe, you know, if he's like you know, dude, I'd like to talk with you this, and that maybe I'll I'll look into it again trying to get, I don't know, it'd be kind of cool just to talk with people, not debate, because I'm not a good debater. I wouldn't mind getting somebody who's full-on liberal, but somebody that I can just talk to Make some jokes, whatever this and that. Okay, so that's just kind of the information that I found on him. So here is his bio that he sent me. This is his mini bio Kiwan Aimee K-I-J-U-A-N-A-M-E-Y. He's on Facebook. You can see some interviews he's already done with other podcasters and stuff, but he's the visionary behind Amy Motivation. Amy Motivation hails from Durham, north Carolina, where his journey of resilience and success began. After graduating from the Southern High School, he dedicated a decade of his life to the US Air Force, achieving the rank of Staff Sergeant as an in-flight refueling specialist. Medically retired, he transitioned into academia. So the thing I got some stuff from this. Maybe he sends this out to all his podcasters for them to introduce him Earning a degree and founding. Amy Motivation formerly served as the vice president for the Carolina Regional Group of the Blind and Veterans Association. He was also a mentor and ambassador for the Air Force Women Warriors Program. Beyond his military career, many talents, okay, yeah, so this is a lot where I got from.
Speaker 1:Don't Focus on Me so that's the name of his book. Don't Focus on why Me, which is? You know, that's a big thing. You know I've been. You know it's kind of crazy too, is? I almost feel like God is trying to tell me something. I hope he's not trying to prepare me for something, but you know, I talked about the Joe Rogan podcast that had Robert Rodriguez and I wasn't really like, whatever, I'll listen to it.
Speaker 1:I like to listen to things when I'm doing cleaning and organizing or doing some sort of honeydew task that I've got to get done. I mean, I love some of his movies. I talked about that in another podcast. I'm not going to go into it. Come on, I didn't take my little meth thing. Sorry if I just blew out yours. You know what. I think I'm going to take one because I kind of have a cold.
Speaker 1:Ooh, look at ASMR, ooh, what, ooh, what's he doing? Oh, alright, alright, oh, what? Oh, what's he doing? Oh, all right, All right. So I listened to that podcast and I was very inspired by what he had to say. He was a very inspirational, you know, not just because he was a director, but just going about life and the things that he does, and he does excuse me, he does like Ted talks and things like that and uh. So you know it was like, wow, okay, you know, it made me think about some stuff and and then I don't know if it I don't think it was the next episode, but the next time I listened to the Rogan podcast it had the actor. I'll get it, I'll get it, I'll get it.
Speaker 1:He got tore up by the snow cat, jeremy Renner gosh, dang it. I need a mute button. So for those that don't know he was, he was in the Avengers movies and stuff. He's Hawkeye, one of my favorite movies. He's in a lot of stuff though. He's actually a really good actor. But I liked Born Legacy. It was really good In Town, anyway.
Speaker 1:So he got messed up like almost mutilated, killed, you know, bones, broken, eyeball, popped out, all kinds of stuff. Right Now for someone to go through to survive, get all the surgeries and then do the rehabilitation. That takes a lot longer. It takes a lot. You know, not everybody can do that. Not everybody can go through what he went through and come out the way he has. If you watch that, you'd be like what this is crazy man, you know. But it's just his attitude, you know, and it's a huge, huge thing.
Speaker 1:I don't like being a pessimistic. I like people who are optimistic and love life and enjoy the moments, which I try to do, you know, but it's not a natural thing for me. That's why, like a lot of my friends a friend of mine who were not friends anymore because of Trump and stuff, but he was very he would get excited about the littlest things and stuff like that but it, you know, it balanced out the yin and yang kind of thing for me. So it's good for me to have somebody who's like that to balance out my you know, have somebody who's like that to balance out my you know cynicism or whatever. But you know, I thought about, like man, if I had, you know, I've done some physical therapy and I've got injured, but nothing like what he went through, and I was just like man if I had to, I mean, I got through my physical therapy, it was good, I'm ready to go. But there's so much.
Speaker 1:Rehabilitation is such a mental game. I mean, life in general is a mental game. It's all about your mentality and your outlook and everything like that. And so I have Rodriguez podcast that one. And now I got this Kiwan Amy guy kind of reaches out to you know, I mean, and I know it wasn't like, oh my gosh, this guy. So you know, there's many people like me, I'm sure, but still it's like I feel like God's trying to tell me something, and so, you know, I watched some parts of a podcast that he was on and he's very reserved, you know, he's not like super, but he's very inspirational though, you know, and the things that he had to go through, a big thing. I think that really, you know, it's like the story of Job in the Bible.
Speaker 1:You know you can't focus on why me or you know all this sucks, focus on the negativity or the bad stuff, instead of focusing on what you know, what blessings you have, what's good in life and what you can do to make it better and just all that stuff. You know. So it's and I'm constantly, you know, like, where I live now, man, it's like I, I have a life that many people dream about. You know what I mean. I mean it's not extravagant, but it's very simple, it's very easy. Yes, it's hot as hell, but you know we got air conditioners. So you know, during the summer we pay a little bit higher electric bill, working on getting some solar panels, you know, to help mitigate that a little bit.
Speaker 1:But you know I can't. You know, I mean I've been kind of my tailbone's been hurting so I haven't been riding and you know I'm getting rid of this gabapentin out of my system, so it just makes me feel a little, you know. But other than that, you know, I just I get up and I well, now the kids are in summer so I don't have to get them up and ready for school, but it's just, I don't have any responsibilities, which is great. But at the same time I think it kind of it's not very good either, especially for my brain. You know what I mean. Like I have to have some structure, I have to have some things set up. So I go through periods where I'll like make a have to have some structure, I have to have some things set up. So I go through periods where I'll like make a schedule and do some stuff. I drop my dog off to get neutered one of the dogs so that's good, I like getting things done.
Speaker 1:But it's good to surround yourself or expose yourself to individuals like this Kiwan Amy guy In those podcasts I talked about. I would suggest you guys listen to him. Check out this Kiwan Amy guy. I'm going to see what I can do about his book. I'm going to try and see if I can find it on Amazon and give it a read Because it is helpful. You know it's helpful to be around that, to read it, to be inspired.
Speaker 1:Even some of the stupid Hollywood movies you know not so much now they all suck so bad, but you know, it's just, it's good to have positivity around you. You know it really is, and it's like I'm at a point in my life where I do see it. I used to be like, whatever man, screw it, I'm negative. But I don't like to be negative, I don't like to be pessimistic, I don't like to be cynical. You know what I mean and I don't know if some of that is just my age or if some of it is because of my faith. Now, um, that I've kind of like I've realized it, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But you know, to go for this Q1 Amy guy guy to be going into his career, his military career, and doing his life, having his life in front of him and having a plan, and then it all goes wrong. He could have just sunk into depression, become an alcoholic and, oh my gosh, my life's over. Why me, why me? But he didn't. He turned it around. He made lemonade out of lemons, you know, and um, it's, it's an easy thing to do, but yet it is the hardest thing to do to have that outlook.
Speaker 1:You know, he said um, one of the podcasts I watched with him. In it he said one of the podcasts I watched with him. In it he said, and it's like the Rocky quote from I don't know which one it was, it was one of the later ones, I think one of the ones that wasn't that good, but this quote is awesome. It's like, you know, it's not about what is he saying. So life, nothing beats you up harder than life, and it's not about what knocks you down, but like how hard you can get hit and get back up. Basically, I'm a little off a little bit, but he said the same thing. It reminds, you know, it made me think of that quote from that film. It's a great quote from that film. It's a great quote.
Speaker 1:But it's true, though, you know, it's like you can't look at and I think, like my mom she was really bad about that Like she kind of and that's kind of the thing with like depression, that's you know, the demons in the world, you know it's, it's you know it'll kill you, man slowly, you know it just eats away at everything. So to have something so catastrophic or so negative hit you and come out of it on the other side like Kiwan Amy, like Jeremy Renner, you know to have those huge travesties happen but still be positive and look forward and work towards being happy and everything. It's like I said, it's easy but because it's like all you do is got to look at the positive but it's so hard to do that you know it's not. It's easy but it's not. You know it's. My computer is doing something weird. All right, so it's just.
Speaker 1:I don't know it's pretty inspirational, so I did not, you know, talk to this guy directly. I read you the emails and the correspondence that I had with him and I appreciate what he's doing and maybe someday I can actually have him on as an actual guest and just shoot the breeze. You know, not interview so much, but just talk about whatever. Well, yeah, so that's all. This was um, not really a planned podcast, but you know, um, he reached out to me and you know, at first like I thought it was a um. Is this a scam? Am I going to click on the link for his book? You know what I mean. So I was a little cautious but I looked him up and and yeah, so he's legit. So I was a little cautious, but I looked him up and yeah, so he's legit. He seems to be a good guy from what I can tell.
Speaker 1:If you're looking for some inspiration or something positive to focus on instead of just the crap in the world, look him up. Check out his book. Don't Focus on why Me by Kiwan Aimee Again, it's K mean if I get people like dude, yeah you should. I mean I'll get anybody. If you're a listener and you want to just BS with me or something, let me know, we'll figure something out. It's not like we're live streaming, so I mean if I record something and it turns out not good, then I don't have to post it. But anyway, that's about it. Actually, I did pretty good with my time. Again, stay positive. Love, life, love. Jesus Got a new pope. Hopefully he does well. Thanks for hanging out. I'll see you guys next time and God bless. All right, bye.
