0:00:00 - 0:00:40 So one frequent criticism that I hear is something like uh I don't like your condescending tone uh or you're very arrogant. So, um these are interesting criticisms because um where do I even start? So let's start with the condescending one. Well, this is actually true of both terms. The validity of those 0:00:39 - 0:01:24 descriptors is uh dependent on um how a person really is and how the the person perceiving really is as well. So let me throw some ideas at you. One, there are certainly attributes of people that are readily observable. But what's interesting is that there are potential qualities of people that are quite 0:01:24 - 0:01:53 hidden and these qualities can actually be more numerous, um much more numerous than the visible ones. What makes this difficult is that a lot of people um are limited to in character, to the things that are readily observable. And so, especially for those kinds of people, see, as humans, we all tend 0:01:52 - 0:02:22 to project how we are onto everyone else and this gets pretty tricky pretty quickly. So people who don't have much depth to them, um tend to assume that no one else does either. People who are really deep, tend to assume everyone else is really deep. Uh People who distrust others tend to assume that 0:02:22 - 0:02:43 others distrust them. People who are altruistic tend to assume that everyone else is and people who are downright evil also assume that everyone else is. And that one's really interesting to see peel back if you happen to know one. Uh Well, if you have the misfortune of coming to know someone well, who 0:02:43 - 0:03:05 is, um, you know, a dark triad type. For example, this is one thing that bothers me is how readily people throw around the term narcissist. If you've ever known a real one. first, I'm sorry, uh, it's a terrible, terrible thing. And, um, you, you wouldn't treat that lightly. It's like people who crack 0:03:05 - 0:03:28 jokes about the devil. I'm not saying there's not a time and a place but, um, it's a really serious topic and if you've ever met him, you wouldn't be joking around about it. Right. So, um, anyway, uh, I, I think it's really weird when people throw that around lightly they just talk about, oh, you're 0:03:27 - 0:03:57 a narcissist. Well, ok, anyway, um, it's like someone who says that is much more likely to actually be a narcissist than anyone they're accusing. It's not always the case but, you know, whatever. That's, it's a very common situation. So, with this depth business, um, it turns out that, that, you know 0:03:56 - 0:04:19 , a, a significant chunk of the population has a depth to them that you just wouldn't know when you first meet the person and this can be for good or for evil. And unfortunately, um, the good ones are kind of rare. Right. So, it, it happens to be the case that most of the times when you get to know someone 0:04:18 - 0:04:40 . Well, what's happening? You are disappointed, right. Um, now part of that problem is that we also tend to elevate people. We would like to think there a certain way. And then um we sort of give that freely and then when we find out who they really are, it's like uh all right. So we have to adjust that 0:04:40 - 0:05:07 downward, but it can also go the other way. And so there was this guy named Jesus once and it turns out that everybody underest, underestimated him, his goodness, every single person he ever met, underestimated his goodness. And in fact, one of the key reasons he came to earth as a man was to show people 0:05:06 - 0:05:31 in terms they could understand uh to a greater degree than they previously understood just how good the father is because it exceeded their greatest expectation. And so by coming uh in the flesh, he could literally show them what that was like in a way that was tangible. So that's interesting. So, um 0:05:30 - 0:05:58 Nephi had a vision where an angel asked him, do you know the condescension of God? And then he was shown scene after scene of jesus' life, which was a future prophecy at the time. This is a long time ago. And in those visions, um there were repeated cycles of, of uh where Jesus, where, where Nephi was 0:05:58 - 0:06:24 shown Jesus doing something good and then the people responding with evil and then he would do something even better and the people responded with evil. And that's what the angel called the condescension of God. So when the world uses the term condescending, they mean something very different because 0:06:23 - 0:06:48 obviously God's condescension is good. It means he's coming down from a higher level to help people that are lower than he is. When the world calls someone condescending, what they mean is that person is either elevating themselves above where they actually are or they're degrading others below where 0:06:47 - 0:07:15 they actually are. So they're either over inflating themselves or belittling others. So that's really interesting because in order to say that and have that, that judgment mean anything, you would have to accurately know both how that person actually is and how you actually are. Now, here's the interesting 0:07:14 - 0:07:42 thing. There are certainly condescending people in the, in the bad connotation in this world. There are a whole lot of them, in fact, um routinely good people are underappreciated and routinely people have over inflated self images, right? So, therefore, condescension is a very common thing. Here's the 0:07:42 - 0:08:15 interesting thing. Uh If a real righteous person came along like Jesus, ok, if Jesus came along, he would absolutely be called condescending. He would absolutely be called arrogant. There's no question. Many, many people today would call him those things. There's no question why? Because you can clearly 0:08:15 - 0:08:38 see back when he did come just how many people, one underappreciated, how righteous he was. Uh, a whole lot of people thought he was the, the sinner, sinner just the worst of the worst. And then some people thought he was just really misguided. Some people thought he was a teacher, you know, and decent 0:08:37 - 0:09:06 . Some people thought he was a wise man. Some people thought he was a prophet. Some people thought that he was the Messiah in the traditional Jewish sense of what that meant. All of those people vastly underappreciated who he really was. None of them had a clue of his actual holiness because those who 0:09:06 - 0:09:29 are less holy cannot see higher holiness accurately. It's impossible. They can be brought along a little bit. And that's it because you're, you're limited in what you can see by how much you've become. That's just an inviolable principle. So they all underappreciated him and you can look through his 0:09:29 - 0:09:55 ministry and see very clearly that a lot of what he was doing was helping people see that they were not as holy as they thought they were, right? So you have case after case where both conditions were true, that people definitely saw him as less holy than he actually was. And he was making a case that 0:09:55 - 0:10:19 they were less holy than they thought they were. So you can guarantee that people today would call Jesus condescending in a bad way if you were here today and you could do the same analysis for arrogance. If someone were literally the holiest person to ever walk the earth, that's Jesus. Nothing he could 0:10:19 - 0:10:40 do would be arrogant. Right? Because he'd literally be the holiest man ever. So, anything he did talking about his own holiness would just be accurate. Now, here's the interesting thing Jesus said repeatedly that he came to demonstrate the father. All right, no problems. There are any Christians, ok 0:10:40 - 0:11:07 , with that, right? OK. But he also said that the the job of his disciples was to become so much like him that just as those who get to know Jesus get to know the father because they're so similar, we are meant to become even as he is. So that when people get to know us, they actually get to know Jesus 0:11:06 - 0:11:34 better because of so many similarities between us. That's the charge. That's a high bar. OK. So um what I'm saying with all of this is if there were a person on the earth today, sorry, we don't have to say if someone on this planet right here right now is more like Jesus than everyone else on this planet 0:11:34 - 0:12:02 because no two can be exactly alike. You could rank every single person in how much like God they are now wherever you are on that scale, everyone above you is holier than you. And so when we use phrases like, oh, you're so holier than thou. The first question that should be asked is, yeah. But, but 0:12:02 - 0:12:35 are you really, are you really? So when we flippantly use words like arrogant or um condescending or we use phrases like holier than thou or who do you think you are? Whatever we should stop and ask like who is this person more accurately? How is this person or more importantly, would I levy these same 0:12:34 - 0:13:02 criticisms against Jesus himself or do I need to uh uh find or adopt a better way of judging value in another person? Because just because someone is making a case that you are less good than you thought that does not imply that they are arrogant or condescending, they actually could be absolutely full 0:13:02 - 0:13:26 of love. And if they were, that is exactly what they would do, right? Do you get the difference? Does that mean that anyone who's dressing you down is doing you a favor? Well, the question is, is, is, is, are they right? Are they? Right? That's the first question. If someone says like, hey, um I don't 0:13:26 - 0:13:44 know, you could pick anything here, but uh you should work a little harder at work. The first reaction is that who the heck do you think you are? The first reaction? Is, am I working as hard as I could at work if the answer is no, then like that's the end of the conversation. It doesn't mean matter if 0:13:43 - 0:14:08 Ronald mcdonald is the one who told you this. Like, who cares? Right. So these are important ideas to consider they're really important. Um And so I, I think it's safe to say that most people that, that lob accusations of people being narcissists are actually probably narcissists. Most people who let 0:14:08 - 0:14:30 lobby lob the, the accusation of someone being condescending. Um, they're probably the one that's being condescending. Most people who lobby lob, I keep saying that lob, the accusation of being arrogant, they're probably the ones being arrogant. These are things that you should think twice before saying 0:14:30 - 0:14:53 . Um, and, and you should certainly pause and, and think about what objective differences exist between you and what's been demonstrated. Right. So, um, it's like if you're living in poverty, um, and you cross paths with a millionaire, your first reaction shouldn't be, oh, I hate that guy because he 0:14:53 - 0:15:12 doesn't deserve what he has. And I do. It might be true. Right. It might absolutely be true. But it's much more beneficial to pause and say, ok, there's a huge difference in how much money we have is that the only difference because maybe you can learn something about the difference and then become that 0:15:11 - 0:15:33 way yourself and then you'd see a lot more than you do. And this is, uh, you know, spoken from a guy that grew up in poverty and now doesn't live in poverty. Uh things can change. Right. Life's crazy. But um there are absolutely uh things you can learn by, by making these comparisons and then saying 0:15:32 - 0:15:56 , but what does this mean and interpreting it a different way? People are highly uh offendable and what they don't seem to realize is that offense is a choice. It's not something someone does to you. It's how you choose to react if someone says something uh critical to you and it doesn't happen to be 0:15:56 - 0:16:21 true. Um You're not gonna react to it, you're gonna say, well, I don't know what's up his butt but whatever, right, more power to him. Or if you're, if you're really uh of a good mindset, you'll say something like uh porn did to Maroni when Moon I chewed him out and incorrectly. Um And you'll say like 0:16:21 - 0:16:42 bless his heart like he's really trying, he's off base, but I can see that he's got, he's doing it because he's trying to help, you know, so good for him. And uh that's a much better way to be. So, um but if the criticism is true, then that's sort of the end of the story. Uh And people that go on and 0:16:42 - 0:17:08 on about being offended by someone's tone, you know, I've heard they've studied this something like 80% of communication is nonverbal. But I think it's a sign of mental weakness to rely so strongly on channels of information that are the least capable of conveying truth. Someone's tone, that's the least 0:17:08 - 0:17:31 important thing. Like someone's tone is not going to get you to change your life, right? Or if it does, the question is to what? Because it's what they're saying that has the information value. It's not how they say it. It's not in the words, it's not even in the tone. And this is, I think a sign of 0:17:31 - 0:17:57 the degradation of our culture that we put so much emphasis on this and facial expressions and sound and whatever versus the hardcore content people today like won't even read a book. I can't be bothered. It's like give me a Tik Tok and that's not a good thing. That's not a good slope of uh of change 0:17:56 - 0:18:22 , a good gradient. It's the information that matters. It's not who says it or how it's said it's what it is. So I don't, you know, if I was walking down the street and I was crossing a bridge, there's a bridge here in town where they're always homeless people hanging out and some homeless guy shouted 0:18:21 - 0:18:43 out some stock pick. You know, I'm not into that. But like if it's a winning pick, it's a winning pick. It doesn't matter if it came from a homeless guy on a bridge now, maybe it's less likely that that's going to be correct. Right. And maybe you're not gonna put your life savings into that bet. But 0:18:42 - 0:18:44 um it's a sign.