Regrets & What's in a Name: Josh Jones Jumps, The Grasshopper Learns from the Ant
- Josh Jones
- Feb 20, 2022
- 16 min read
I said in an earlier post that you needed to look up the definition of munko for yourself. I’m astounded daily by how quickly, easily information flows. You can get a PhD level education on any topic, any time if you are just slightly motivated and curious. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but that same curiosity to learn, to understand and to use the wealth of information around is, will also teach this old dog some new tricks.
I looked up munko and sure, it was a cute name for my dog, my little monkey girl sata (Puerto Rican street dog beauty) Luna Mar. She is my munko, such a lover. That was cute, but what I mostly found when researching munko was about my friend David Choe and crazy Asian stuff, dark stuff and also a parallel to suicide and a munko move. So that was a little startling and hit something inside me. But I was in a mood to write and was pulling together information for other material I am putting together and I was surfing the web, reading a few other articles and then researching more about writing. Writing is a great creative outlet for me, something I had forgotten, or had been consumed by my sickness and darkness for many years, and I’ve just gotten back into it, finding that writing is a part of my recovery and process. I truly believe the story must be told, not just for myself, but for others. So, I am diligently working at it, daily. It’s a process, one I am investing in with discipline.
I have spent countless hours over the years thinking of myself as fatally flawed, unable to escape the plague that is me, very dark on the inside, but that is something I kept to myself. I even laughed at the joke I had about myself, even cried about it many times, down to my name. Josh Jones – I have broken that name down so many times, even played on it with twitter where I am @mindentropy (Jonesin’ to find Josh). Going back to writing, I use prospection and think of my finished work, my book that tells a dark and horrific but tragically beautiful story. Then I envision the author’s name at the bottom of the book cover and I sink into my chair here. Its more darkness in my story, I think of how plain my name is, maybe it needs some pizzazz, I think about how I wasn’t secure enough with myself or the world to take my wife’s last name when we got married, something I know she would have liked, and so would I looking back. Josh Jones – I said so many times in dark moments, of course I’m a cruel joke and destined for failure, damaged goods, a hopeless addict, as even my name says it. Josh or Joshing is to joke or make fun. Jones or Jonesing for something, I always think about a heroine addict jonesing for a next high or any other addict jonesing for whatever it is they are hooked on. So I drift into delusion thinking maybe for the book cover I will go with Josh Tibbs for Tara, or also for myself to start a new chapter. Or maybe J. Adam Tibbs so I can truly continue to wear a mask and hide, maybe fewer who know me will pick it up, realize this story. But that’s not how it should be, I need to keep true to myself and the world, Josh Jones so when you look at the cover you will see it’s a story about a sick joke and an addict. Whether you look at me as a verb or a noun I am a tragic cautionary tale, that is far from a joke. Look it up, or better yet, here it is right below. You can’t make this shit up, I think I said that early on and there are so many levels to that statement.
Ok, so Joshing you or Jonesing is part of this story, but a much more real angle came to light as I was googling my name and finding meaning. The music became very somber, and I was in the middle of another moment that told me all of this was by no means coincidence. I wasn’t a mistake, this wasn’t a joke, and my mission was again clarified and I was motivated and shook to my core at the same time. I had the high school football pre-game locker room feeling – nervous energy, pumped and scared all at the same time. Sure and fearful, ready and running away all at the same time. Just before game time, the silence is deafening in the locker room, and I was in that moment staring into the abyss of life again.
There’s 338,000 people with the first name Joshua in the US, its pretty popular (106 of us for every 100,000 people), not extremely popular. Almost all of them go by Josh for short and 0.49% of Joshs have the last name Jones. So there’s a bunch of other Josh Jones out there, about 1700 in the US, more in other countries, so I’m not that unique right. That is a question for another day. But I dove in a bit further and here is where the shock and awe came, I don’t know what made me type in ‘Josh Jones addict’ and hit return, but I did and again google dropped a bomb on me.
The first hit on google is an article that I thought was an out of body experience, reading about Joshua Jones, 23 years old from the UK, who had committed suicide by jumping off of a building, ending the life that was consumed by addiction and gambling in 2016. I read on, more disoriented, wondering if I was reading about me and was in purgatory or if this was real.
I wrote previously about Cheslie Kryst, Miss USA who took her own life in a similar jump, in an earlier post. I know the feeling of looking over the edge, but thankfully I stepped back. I wish Cheslie had stepped back, I wish Joshua Jones of Swindon, Wiltshire UK had also stepped back. That Josh Jones was a young, talented, intelligent and normal-functioning addict, he worked as an accountant for Pricewaterhouse Coopers in London. Friends and family had nothing but good things to say, and were shocked that this person had a dark secret, an addiction to gambling that overtook him, and he died of shame after losing control. Jumping off the ninth floor balcony of the PriceWaterhouse Coopers building that he worked at, what a tragedy. Another tragedy. And how many days prior to the jump did he think of this act but pulled back, how many days was Josh haunted by the wakeful nightmares of his gambling addiction that he could never escape. Josh took his life because he felt there was no way to pay back the gambling debts he had racked up as his addiction could not be controlled, he couldn’t reach out for help, he couldn’t accept help. Martin Jones, 72, Joshua’s father, said: “To people who worked with him, he was the life and soul of the party, but he was living a double life as a gambler. He felt despair that he could not control the addiction.”
Roughly 50% of gambling addicts kill themselves – David Choe said this in a podcast and I wrote that down and circled it. That is why there are no balconies in Las Vegas, you can’t break the glass of your room in the hotels. I hope 50% of gambling addicts named Josh Jones don’t kill themselves. This is startling to say the least and not some coincidence or random stuff – this is for others to see and the power in the story may drive change. Regardless of whether 1 or 2 addicts named Josh Jones jump off a building. David Choe also said this “And eventually it got dark, everything lost value” that is just what happened here for 23 year old Josh Jones the gambling addict, but luckily did not for David Choe or this Josh Jones. We all have a price or limit. And pain and trauma – they are maximum to you, its not a competition. Josh Jones of the UK met his limit and felt no return or recovery, however I am in a much luckier position and was able to pull back. Where Josh Jones found his limit and it was inescapable, other’s found their limit but bounced up and forward. Martin Jones went on to say that his son Josh would not every admit defeat and return home to his family to get help, to recover. He truly did feel alone, was ashamed and kept it all inside. But there were surely signals, either his parents or friends could have stepped in – but I am certain that everyone thought Josh’s issues were not dire, as we frequently believe an addict, underestimate the severity of issues that are on the inside, because of what we want to believe, what the addict projects on the outside. Josh’s friends and family now have a deep feeling of regret that can never be treated or changed. The most damning type of regret, foundational regret, the regret of not taking action.
A Public Health England study published in September estimated that there are more than 409 suicides a year in England associated with problem gambling. It is the first time an official estimate has been made of the number of deaths. And gambling is just one form of mental health, there are many other suicides each day in the UK, in the US that are not gambling related, but the connection point is mental health struggle and addiction, compulsion which we must treat. Each of these people felt alone with no other way out, and there are countless more with that same feeling - but they are not alone, we can change that. Or we can regret that we didn’t, we can continue to regret it even if we try not to acknowledge the facts regarding mental health and its most tragic form – suicide in our society. Where every hour in the US 5 people commit suicide and more die from substance abuse, another form of suicide and escape in many cases. People think most overdoses are accidental, woops I took a little too much, but the truth is that more than 25% of those 100,000 annual overdoses are intentional. So add another 3 deaths by suicide every hour and its 8 lives lost every hour of every day to suicide in the US. That is staggering to think about, not just the loss of life, but the number of people around all of us who are truly struggling, maybe their day of ending the wakeful nightmares is not today, but its approaching, getting closer every day if we don’t take action and offer help. I would regret it, I know you would regret it, and I don’t want to add any more regrets to the ones I carry already.
Further on the topic of regret, I recently listened to a podcast from Brené Brown with the author Dan Pink on his latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Can Move Us Forward.
The most painful regrets come from the things we didn’t do, not regretting things we did.
5 years ago I met a man/woman I liked, but was too chicken to ask him/her out and now I regret this, as I am alone and always wondering what could have been….we all know of or have that story
If only I had taken the chance….human aspiration is the deep regret
A large data set went into Pink’s conclusion that the biggest, deepest regrets are the actions we didn’t take. Dan Pink took a very unique approach to leverage the many ways technology provides access to large data sets and he combed through thousands of surveys and multiple studies around the topic of regret. Lack of courage, action, those are the biggest regrets. Not stepping in to help someone, thinking you could have done more. That is how so many who knew Josh felt when he jumped from the PwC building in 2016, how so many feel today more than five years later. That feeling is powerful, putting myself in the position to see the pain and regret in others, that is likely the reason I stepped back. I have played a horrible trick on so many of my loved ones, but taking my own life, even if I made it look like an accident, would surely bring immeasurable pain and suffering, regret upon them and I couldn’t do that.
Dan Pink is brilliant, Brené Brown also brilliant, and listening to them I think back to so many of my own regrets, and in all of them, I know I should have taken action to change myself, to reach out for help and start to heal and cure myself, but I never did. I don’t regret any of the horrible things I’ve done, to myself mainly but to others also, yet I truly regret the hiding and not speaking up for help. I will never be able to change that past, but I am changing that in the present and the future. I hope my story will also minimize or expunge regret in others, that they will step up and seek help to change their path earlier, that they will not feel alone, and that those who are not struggling will lean in and help, be an ally and rock for those who are struggling and need their support.
Brené Brown says regret is the greatest teacher, I truly hope that will be the case. People don’t want to have regrets, they don’t want to talk about them, just like mental health. We have to start talking about mental health to have any chance of turning regret into victory and change. I read Rising Strong, that is Brené Brown’s book on how to bounce back from a tragedy, setback or failure. In order to overcome and bounce back, we must face our emotions, confront our ideas and makeup. It takes bravery to step inside and digest, to overcome vulnerability and the many emotions that hold us back, to turn them into a force that moves us forward in life. Brené Brown presents a process, and principles from which you can rise up in three phases. And asking for help is a key component of rising strong, overcoming adversity or failure, beating your past. Asking for help is a sign of strength not weakness. A part of the story that sticks with me and I wrote down was from Brené Brown’s pastor who said “When you look away from a homeless person, you diminish their humanity.” I feel that is what so many of us do when it comes to mental health, we have to replenish and revive, not look away and diminish, add to the sufferers internal demise. Here are the three phases presented in Rising Strong:
Reckon with your emotions by noticing and investigating them – take the lesson, don’t skip the class
Rumble with the stories you tell yourself to uncover the false beliefs – delusion can lead to deeper holes and far greater trouble
Revolutionize your attitude with the results of your introspection, channel your insights into positive changes and those small steps become a revolution.
“People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses”
-Brené Brown
Can we use regret for good, can we turn countless tragedies to highlight the importance of emphasizing and taking action on mental health for good – of course we can. Mental health is a cause that should drive us all.
Daniel Pink says that joining a cause that is “bigger” than yourself drives the deepest motivation possible. Purpose in this context means waking up in the morning and going to work without grumbling. It also means that people with purpose are motivated to tackle even the most complex problems. That is what we need, purpose and motivation in all of us around impacting the disease class of mental health. Join the mental health cause, even in small ways just for those around you, for yourself. You might truly regret it if you don't.
I read much more about Dan Pink and his term foundation regrets, and the story grew for me. Foundation regrets come from choices that seem irresistible at first, but later turn into powerful regrets – for an addict that is just what addiction is. Whether it’s a bottle, a pill, a smoke, a bet, its all the same – something draws us in, the dopamine rush captivates us, and before long we are powerless to the force of darkness, the entropy inside of us grows day by day and takes over.
Dan Pink has a unique angle that resonates with me. He says that a compelling story, one that you can’t look away from is not just good storytelling but is connecting powerful facts and data along with delicate, deft delivery. “My own hard research, history and case studies, combined with storytelling make the story resonate.” I feel that in my story as well.
Pink highlights another story of regret that is interesting, in Jason Drent, an average or slightly-above average guy who made his way up the corporate ladder but lived for the moment, didn’t save for tomorrow and was a very impulsive spender.
“It’s kind of sad looking back,” he told me. “I should have more resources at this point. I regret not saving money diligently ever since I started working. It’s nearly crushing every day to think about how hard I’ve worked, but financially I have nothing to show for it.”
For me, the crushing part is this person above who is looking back, Jason Drent, is so worried about the financial aspect when he has a high six-figure salary and there is no real issue with money. He should look deeper into the real aspects of his life that may be regret worthy or crushing, he needs to ask the most important question about his lack of saving and lavish spending Why? There is something deeper behind this that is the root of his issue, is he trying to make up for something in his past, does he have an insecurity issue, this is not a money thing as I have said before.
Pink talks about an Aesop’s fable The Ant and The Grasshopper, one we all know well – about putting in the hard work to get somewhere or trying to get there with a quick fix. This mentality ties into what Pink says is the most important of all regrets (he has four groups of regrets), foundational regrets, where you take the path of the grasshopper and not the ant. Especially devastating for an addict, someone with an obsessive compulsive personality, someone like me. I know my foundational regret, and I was hooked. I was only 12 or 13 at the time. But I remember that moment like it happened just yesterday. I think there is also an important distinction in Pink’s work that has to differentiate between a ‘normal’ person and an ‘addict’ because the information and logic flow is very different, even if the outcome is the same in the end. For an addict, foundation regrets arise from a predisposition and feeling that becomes a habit and uncontrollable physical, emotional and chemical force. But perhaps it is a failure of foresight as he says below. I don’t see the early moment for an addict as a choice, anything but. And we need help to make better choices and learn, grow.
"Foundation regrets arise from our failures of foresight and conscientiousness. Like all deep structure regrets, they start with a choice. At some early moment, we face a series of decisions. One set represents the path of the ant. These choices require short-term sacrifice, but in the service of a long-term payoff. The other choices represent the path of the grasshopper. This route demands little exertion or assiduousness in the short run, but risks exacting a cost in the long run. The full ramifications of these incremental choices don’t materialize immediately. But over time, they slowly accrue. Soon the full consequences become too towering to deny—and, eventually, too massive to repair. Foundation regrets sound like this: If only I’d done the work." [if only I would have sought help]
"Foundation regrets begin with an irresistible lure and end with an inexorable logic." [and for those with mental health issue, addicts, substance abusers, gamblers, OCD, there is an inescapable force that you don’t see until you feel there is no way to escape the downward spiral]
"Foundation regrets are not just difficult to avoid—they are also difficult to undo. Our brains therefore play a double trick on us. They entice us into valuing the now too much and the later too little. Then they prevent us from understanding the nonlinear, compounding effects of our choice. Overlay the two charts, and they form a trap that can be difficult to escape." [As Tony Bourdain said, “Depression is a grease trap of troubling thoughts. All the good things that come a persons way during their day go in and out of their mind, but their depression retains all the bad runoff.” Regrets form a similar grease trap, and regrets are a precursor to depression and then depression becomes an input to regrets. So the grease traps more grease just to form a bigger trap for tomorrow’s depression and regret, a slippery slope.]
My regrets are two-fold, have to do with something deeper – surface structure and deep structure. Just as there are surface regrets and deeper regrets. And on the surface there was no regret, yet on the inside I couldn’t find anything but pain and regret, with no way out. If only I had opened up earlier to get help, I would be somewhere very different. But at the same time, I don’t regret any of it, because of what I know now, the courage I have to tell my story and help someone else, bring light on mental health. I will not be the Ant who watches the Grasshopper die, knowing I could have helped and taught the Grasshopper, making us collectively better.
Omissions are about playing it safe, not having bold courage – well I wasn’t playing it safe when I became an addict, all those years I hid my issues, I was missing the courage to open up. Pain and regret are two very similar signals in our bodies and minds telling us that something is wrong. We have to listen to those signals, and I don’t just mean about mental health. But I know we all have regrets around mental health that we need to change. WE all have an internal voice we must listen to more closely. No matter which of the four core regrets we have, foundation, connection, boldness or moral; all can be powerful teachers and help us to improve day by day.
There is so much more to the stories about gambling in the UK and suicide, I cringe at the countless sportsbook and betting websites that are becoming commonplace here in the US as sports betting becomes legalized in most states. We have to protect ourselves and those around us from this risk:
“You lose your capacity for self-determination. Jack was used to being a clever boy. I think he will have experienced himself losing that, at an age when he needed to rely on it.”
At a time when he was supposed to be forming his identity, Jack began to feel it was slipping away from him. Liz shrugs. “He felt he was destroying himself.”
Many of the families of those who died say that since the liberalisation of gambling laws in 2005, it is almost impossible for an addict to avoid gaming ads on social media, sponsorships deals emblazoned across the country’s football stadiums, free bets and promotional emails.
A report by the Gambling Commission last year estimated there are now 55,000 problem gamblers aged 11-16 in England, Scotland and Wales, and 450,000 who gamble regularly. In this age group, gambling is more popular than smoking or taking drugs; 11% of 11 to 16-year-olds report that they gamble every week, compared to only 6% who smoke tobacco and 5% who take drugs.
“We know that high levels of impulsivity at the age of seven are already a predictor of potential problems with gambling in adulthood.”
“With young people, there’s a significant association with alcohol and drugs. Alcohol disinhibits them. Cocaine is a stimulant, it keeps you going all night. Low mood and anxiety can play a part: sometimes they are using the gambling to act almost as a self-medication.”
These digital products have design features that distort a gambler’s judgment. “They reward you with visual and auditory congratulations, even though you’re losing money,” Gaskell said. “So dopamine, this motivation chemical, is released, even when you’re losing… This pattern of rewards has repeatedly been demonstrated to develop habitual behaviour in animals and humans.”
At some point things flip and the dopamine comes from the losses and you have a true downward spiral
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