Video Transcript

Toggle Timestamps

Uh, a couple of days ago, somebody wrote a comment on youtube about, uh, repentance. And they were like, well, I'm gonna repent a little now and then, you know, we repented this one thing and then we repented this other thing. And I said, have you read, have you read my book Repentance? And they said , I, I think I did, but I don't remember if I didn't, I'll have to reread it. I thought that's, it's funny on a bunch of levels. But anyway, that is not how you repent. And maybe before going any further in this conversation, let's switch up the words so often. Um, well, maybe an analogy is appropriate here if you're weight training and you find yourself hitting a plateau, meaning you'd like to get stronger, but no matter the amount of effort, you don't get stronger. What you need to change up is your approach and you, you switch out the, the exercises because your muscles have grown so accustomed to this exercise that, um, you're not undergoing the, the micro tears that cause the, the, the growth, that's actually what you're doing when you're gaining weight, gaining weight when you're lifting weights, you're, you're ripping muscles, creating micro terrors by exceeding the normal load on your muscles, either in, in the amount of weight or the volume. The number of repetitions it sets and then, um, the growth occurs between workouts. So that's why you have to eat more protein. That's the building block of muscle. So, um, if you find yourself at a plateau, one easy thing you can do is switch up your exercises. Another easy thing you can do, which is counterintuitive is to take a break, take a week off, eat really well during that week and you may come back to it with, with uh new resources, new sources of energy, new, new amounts of energy. So what does this have to do with repentance? Well , if you've, if you've reached the end of the value of your present ideas, which incidentally this is a general principle. It's not specific to repentance. If you've reached the end of the value of your present ideas, you probably need, need new ideas, doing the same thing again and again, is not going to result in any different outcome. OK. So you say, but, but I have successfully repented of specific things in the past. Yeah. And, and the set of things for which that works, you're already through. There's nothing left all the stuff you know about that still needs to get better. It's not gonna get better because if it was, it would already have been better Right. So you need, in the words of Huey Lewis, you need a new drug. So, what is that drug going to be? Well, um let's instead of diving deeply into this new ideas, idea, let's just do a little tweak and let's change our words. Let's change our words. You see, words are a window to greater ideas. It's a two edged sword though because words can draw you higher, but then they can't take you any higher than they do. So all words impose limits. All words impose limits. So if the words describe something greater than who or where you are, then it's a vehicle for growth. But you need to understand this is like the shell of a mollusk. I actually can't remember. There's some class, there's a dichotomy of animals that creatures that have shells and have to leave them and get new ones versus creatures that have shells and they'll just die in them because they can't, they can't uh leave them. And I don't remember if mollusks are the first or second kind. But anyway, you need to be a shell creature that leaves that shell behind and goes and gets a new shell because you won't be able to grow past the limits of your shell. And words are shells, ideas are shells. So uh let's swap out the word repentance and instead just say what we really mean, which is improvement. OK. Improvement. So how is it that in and of itself is massively valuable. OK. That's a, that's a very powerful change. So let's exercise the strength of this tool. Um But use a sledgehammer as a sledgehammer and not a paperweight. So when you try to repent of a specific thing, let's rephrase that you're trying to improve past a certain limitation, right? So how do you do that? And this is the amazing thing, you just make a couple of little tweaks in your language and all of a sudden you realize you have power far beyond what you've exercised. You already do. You don't need anything extra to go the next mile. Now, you know, if you optimize your life enough, you do need extra to keep going. But there's so much available just right there right there in front of you. It's all over the place , right? So uh it reminds me of going to Zimbabwe and driving through the whole country um doing some humanitarian stuff and noticing that everyone is starving and yet it's one of the most fertile places in the world. You could literally just throw seeds on the ground and they will grow and not only will they grow, but you can get two and sometimes three entire growing seasons because the weather is so mild and it rains enough for that. It's amazing. And yet people are starving all over the place. So they don't need land. They don't need a better climate. They don't need better soil. Although things can be done there. They don't need some huge multinational, you know, NGO coming in and fixing their problems. They don't need a new government. Although all of these things might be helpful and might be needed one day. They just need to understand that if you want food, all you have to do is throw seeds into the ground and they don't understand that which is shocking to most people who have never been to a place like that. But those who have understand this huge problem. So what are the fertile lands that are just sitting in front of you that you're not throwing seeds into? Well, let me tell a story . So, um, we didn't really have much ice cream growing up that I can remember. Um, I grew up pretty poor. Um, but that didn't stop me from having a few periods in life where I was overweight for sure. And the funny thing is is that, um, I didn't eat junk food, actually ate a lot of fruit and vegetables . Um, but I was always hungry. I was truly always hungry and you know, if you have kids, you might, you might have the experience of a kid who eats, you know, a pretty good helping of dinner and then says I'm still hungry and they're not teenagers yet, which when they're teenagers, you kind of believe them and they look at they're, they're obviously going through growth for, they're, they're, they're thin, whatever. But when you have a smaller child and they say I'm hungry, I'm hungry. You're like, are you though? Are you really hungry? And, and that's a good thing. You need to help your kids monitor their weight when they're young, they pick up good habits and they don't get weird about it. Uh, if it's just the normal thing, like telling them to brush their hair or their teeth. Um, so I was always hungry growing up though. And my mom didn't know what to do. And so she's like, well, if he says he's hungry and he's not lying because I, I have never been a liar. There, there's some, there's some aspects of my character that, um, my mom, she obviously knew, um, she, she never had to punish me either. Uh I'd usually sort myself out with things before she even caught on. So, um, anyway, so I'd, I'd eat and she didn't know what to do. So she let me eat because I said I was hungry and I'd get fat and, um, that all stopped because I realized that eating was not taking away the hunger eating was not taking away the hunger. Now, I didn't have anything better to put in its place, right? But I realized that in this situation, the choice was be hungry and eat and be fat and still be hungry or be hungry and don't eat so much and don't be fat and still be hungry. Right? Do you see that. So I didn't have something better to, there wasn't an option c which is um eat and don't be hungry and don't be found . And that would have been a better option if it was available. Now, subsequently, I've, I've sort of found that a little and I eat a lot of eggs now, a lot of eggs. But um so, so reducing the vastly reducing the carbohydrate intake has helped for me to uh feel less hungry. But, but I do feel empty food wise pretty much all the time and I'm used to that. I just don't care anymore. But the the alternatives are not appealing to me. There's literally no reason for me to eat more. It will not do a dang thing except bad stuff. Bad things are the only thing that that will add. So I don't eat, I don't overeat . I do eat, I don't overeat. Um I'll tell you another story. Ice cream. Um We started there but then I got on to food in general. So with ice cream. Uh my wife, I don't remember when but we, we picked up an ice cream maker from Goodwill or something. We thought it would be a fun thing to do with the kids and we're always interested in especially economic ways to have our kids in just less toxic waste. And um what pushed me over the line on ice cream rebellion is we got a thing of moose tracks. One time there were, there were no moose tracks in it and this is when inflation was really starting to kick up um years ago. And I was like, this is a joke. What, what are we even doing anymore? And it's all the same price for none of the benefit. So I said this is off the list. We're not doing this anymore. And my wife's not a big ice cream person, so she didn't hurt her feelings. But the kids really like ice cream anyway. So we got an ice cream maker and you know, we grow fruit, we have berries and things and we've tested different ice cream recipes. And my wife, um, we'll do this like three or four times this summer. We'll make some ice cream and, um, she found some awesome recipes and then we tweaked them to have less sugar. And also the, the, the cream in the recipe, a lot of it can be replaced with just whole milk, which saves a lot of money. And so you can actually make ice cream for almost no money. That doesn't have any of the weird garbage that the store ice cream does. And it tastes like 100 times better, like 100 times better. And so that's a great example of filling your life with greater value, finding things of greater value and filling your life with them. And then there's no room for the garbage. So, you know, I'm not gonna say I never buy ice cream anymore but it has to be like ridiculously discounted and I still honestly, I always regret it. So that's something that just in real time I need to not do that. Right. But it's hardly ever because one I don't really go grocery shopping. My wife doesn't buy it in two. you know, it's just so ridiculously overpriced now that, that getting it on a good sale almost never happens. And so it's almost always just because my kids get a little excited about it, they get very excited about it actually just cause it's different. And as far as getting excited about things, it's probably a little better than cocaine. Um So as far as I'm getting excited, it's probably probably a decent thing anyway. Um So the first time my wife made this one ice cream that was homemade, the first time she made homemade ice cream, it was nasty. We didn't give up. Um But she found a recipe that was awesome and I tasted it. I was like, I would not have imagined that ice cream could be this good. That's how good it is. And I tell her don't make it very frequently because um and she, you know, she makes it for me and the kids, she's not a big ice cream person but they don't make this frequently because I will eat all of it. Um But every once in a while it's really nice treat. We have about once a year, maybe twice a year. If we have some guests coming over, she might make it. And, um, she only makes nice things when the guests come over all the, the other time. She just locks me back in my cage. I'm just kidding. She makes nice things all the time . Um, so, um, once I tasted this, this ultra premium ice cream that she made, um, I was just astounded and in that moment in that moment and like just to be clear in this presentation, I'm actually, I'm laying out this talk, a presentation, I'm laying out some tremendously valuable ideas that I have thought and lived thoroughly, but I'm just dealing on my cards and you can take them and run and do wonderful things in your life or you can just let them pass by and maybe I'll repeat them some other time or some other person will, or maybe something will slap you upside the head in your life and you'll remember it. That is also going to be one outcome. So the first time I tasted this ultra premium ice cream, what happened was I had this certain value of regular ice cream and most of it was an illusion. Ok? It wasn't real value. It's just like, well, I don't have anything else that's even close to this . So I'll just keep this here, right? But then I had this ultra premium ice cream and it's a taller bar but the screen only goes so high. So what happened was this one just went because all the illusions went away cause now I had a real place to put them. Does that make sense? Have you ever dated somebody ? And um just truth be told, the only reason you were dating them was because you didn't know anybody better at the time. I mean this isn't a brutal thing to admit, but it's true. People do this all the time, they do this all the time and hopefully you don't dump someone when someone better comes along . Um, because that's kind of a bad on the one hand, it's a good thing to do. Uh, because you are putting value first on the other, it's a bad thing to do because you should actually dump so anyone who doesn't meet what you're looking for, even if you have no one to put in their place because dating is one of these things where you will not find a better person while you have someone in the slot. And, um, a good person will not be interested in you if you dump someone to date them because that, that is a good indication that you don't understand the way value works. You can't recognize situations where nothing is better than something that doesn't work and you are very likely to cheat on them or dump them when something better comes along. That's not the kind of person that sticks it out, um, when hard times come. So anyway, but ice cream you can leave in the slot, I guess. So, when this better ice cream came along, it just vaporized the value that I saw in any other ice cream. And I just don't even care anymore. In fact, when we do buy store ice cream, I'm not the one that eats it. The kids eat it and I'm just like, I don't care, I don't care. There's no value in that to me. Go for it. And um , ok, so repentance, right? How does this? Well, we're, we're talking about improvement. So if you fill your life with better things, there's no room for lesser things. Sin is one of these things. What is sin? You're preferring things that, you know, have less value than an alternative or if you don't yet know the alternative, but you still know it doesn't do what it says it's going to do. That's sin. It's one of those two things. Either there's something better that you know about, but you're preferring something less and you know, it, that's according to your valuation or you're pursuing something that, you know, isn't what you're treating it as it's less than that. So you're paying too high of a cost for something with too little of a benefit. That's it, it's not that hard. And this is why you can't repent of just one thing. This is one way of explaining why there's, there's another approach to this. That's more religious. But this is the nuts and bolts. Everybody can understand. Again. If we change all the words, we can teach this to anyone, they don't have to have any religious. Anything, don't do what's not worth doing and do everything that is. It's that simple. Right. So, sometimes what's needed when we think of repentance, it's not to stop doing this or that it's to start doing this or that it's a start doing this or that. And if the problem is we're just so hung up on the lie, that store ice cream is worth buying. Ok. Fine. Go out and buy a cart full of store ice cream and eat the whole freaking thing. Push it to the limit, ok? Push it to the limit if you think it's good for reason. 12 and three max out those things max out those things and see what happens because what you're gonna find is you're gonna wake up in a ditch on the side of the road with like melted ice cream all over your face and you're gonna weigh £400 and you're gonna not even know how you got there. Right. The problem is never. So here's another thing we talk about addiction. Oh, I'm addicted to food. I'm addicted to this. I'm addicted to. No, you're not. You're dishonest. You're dishonest. People who talk about addiction as if it's some disease, whether they're talking about themselves or other people doesn't matter, they have a dishonesty problem. There has never been a person in the history of the world who got what they sought out of something they were addicted to think about that. You say like , oh, well, this person is an alcoholic. They can't help it, you know, genetic, this, whatever, they've had a hard life. They, this is their culture growing up, they got exposed to it at a hard time, whatever. No, no, no. There has never been a person for whom alcohol has done what they were seeking for it to do beyond what it's good for which, you know, depending on your persuasion in life, you might think it's not good for anything. No, it has a purpose. It has a purpose. It can make ugly people more attractive, that's sure for sure it works for that. It works for that. Ok. It does not solve the problems. People use it to solve abusively. That's one way of defining addiction is using something for an outcome. You know, it can't give you. So if you look up, if you look up how other people define it, you'll find something like it's when you do something that you really don't want to do because you feel like you can't control it. No, no, not true at all. It's when you do something that, you know, can't do what you're doing it for and then instead of calling it addiction, just call it what it is, it's dishonesty, it's dishonesty. So, a person who struggles with addiction does not have a chemical or biological problem. They have an honesty problem. And that's good news because if something's wrong with you physically, you might not be able to do anything about it. Or if you can, I mean, if you're £300 overweight, that's not something you can change in a day. That's a long haul. If people treat addiction like it's a long haul. No, it's not. In fact, if you treat it as a long haul, you're guaranteed to not be treating it because you don't fix dishonesty as a long haul. You fix it right now, you fix it right now and you say, you know, I'm gonna acknowledge this and what you're acknowledging. Sorry, 12 steppers. It's not that you have a problem. It's that you're dishonest. You need to face the facts and what's the big scary fact and why addicts don't recover for the most part? They don't want to admit that they cannot obtain what they're looking for right now. They have no idea how to get it. So, what is that? Well, if you've dealt with terrible situations in life and that's why you're using this, whatever you're using. The horrible truth is, you have no idea how to make that hurt less. You don't know how to find what you're looking for. And so you're masking it with this thing that, you know, isn't good enough to do it, it's not sufficient to do it. But if you're bleeding to death and someone says, I mean, I'm just looking at my desk here, they say if you hold this pen, you'll stop bleeding to death. You say, oh thank goodness you start doing the Bob dole. You have to be old enough to get that reference. Um Guess what? You're still bleeding to death, you're gonna die and you're worse off because you're believing this lie that this is doing something good. And maybe more accurately, it's like if you cut off a finger, like someone cut your arm off and you're bleeding to death this arm and someone says, well, she cut off this finger, it will stop the bleeding and you're an idiot. So you do it and now you're bleeding out of two orifices and you're just dying faster. That's what addiction is. So we need to stop with the stupidity. How is this exactly? Like repentance, which by the way, you know, we, we um I'll, I'll say what I really mean. It's not, we modern Christianity puts down all sorts of people and it's the kind of people who tend to not be attracted to modern Christianity. It's not a question of goodness or badness. It's a question of, do they believe this set of lies or that set of lies? And it just so happens, they're the kinds of people who believe a different set of lies than modern Christians and so modern Christians put down people who are on heroin or this or that or whatever. And some of those people are actually way more Christian than they are. So that's really sad in all the ways that matter. A lot more. The good news is everybody's got stuff to work on. So, um, but the, the modern Christians, it turns out when you see the real problem for what it is, they're doing the same thing. It's just not called addiction. Do modern Christians do things that they know are not worth the cost. They do all the time, do they seek outcomes that they know the ways they seek them cannot produce, they do all the time all the time. Why, why do you think they go to church? They're seeking an outcome that that cannot produce and on and on and on. We can just do this all day long. So how did they find what they're actually looking for? It's a good question often. The first step is realizing you don't have it and stopping the, the show, the pretense of having it and just admitting you don't have it. You know, a lot of people are in miserable marriages if they won't admit it and they pretend everything's hunky dory and great and as good as it's gonna get, that part might be true. But they feel like they, they pretend like they have the best that marriage can offer when they don't. Well, the first step is to admit it and make you have a problem, right? But admit the right problem, commit the right problem. So anyway, those are some thoughts on repentance. If you fill your life with, if you, if you seek to find and fill your life with the things of greatest value, you're not by default, you're not gonna have room for things of less value. And as far as temptation goes , temptation is an information problem and an honesty problem. That's all there is to it. It's not some, you know, magnetic power over you like mesmerizing doesn't work that way. It's, it's a problem of either lack of information or lack of honesty or both. So figure out if it's one or the other or both and then fix it, it's not very complicated. That part is not very complicated. Now, learning more about reality, reality is complicated and that's where the complexity comes in. It's like, well, we got to investigate this ice cream. But um the actual paradigm here, it's, it's brain dead simple folks . We overcomplicated out the wazoo and, and we get caught up in a hedge of our own make, you're making your own maze life is challenging enough without making it harder and you make it harder when you don't see things as they really are, even when it's really freaking obvious. So turn down the volume of all these people who are telling you what you want to hear and turn up the volume of your life that's telling you how it is, be willing to cut your own way through this and to stand up and say like, well, I'm really glad I'm being told that, you know, we mentioned marriage that uh marriage is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But mine really stinks if that's the case, right? I'm not referring in any way to my own experience. Yeah, for better or for worse, it's irrelevant. You know, or you're a new father or a new mother and the baby comes and you're like, man, I really don't like this. This isn't fun. Everybody told me this is the greatest thing in the world and this is miserable. Well, yeah, you didn't, you got sold a false bill of goods on that one. But the, the rest of the story is to hang in there and you'll come to see the value of, but it will probably happen in the rearview mirror . Unfortunately. So do the best you can to, to do the best you can while you're in it. And that's how you're going to maximize how you feel about it later. But yeah, I mean, when you're not sleeping for eight months, that's not going to be a nice thing for those who haven't gone through it before. Right ? So we could go on and on and on about this. Um, you know, people who struggle with weight, it has nothing to do with food, it has nothing to do with food. It has nothing to do with your metabolism. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everybody is different. But those variations are in such a tight band compared to the real problem, which is you're eating for reasons other than to sustain your life. So take all that what you're looking for and go find it because you already tried the food thing and guess what? It doesn't work. That's why you weigh £400 cuz, cuz you've tried it to the max and it doesn't work because you still feel just as empty. No, or in my case, I wasn't eating for emotional reasons and I was actually hungry. But guess what if it doesn't work? Why are you continuing to do it? Go find something else or just deal with the vacancy? So, I hope those thoughts are useful. Um, they're very valuable but whether you get the value out of it or not, it's up to you.