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Funny yesterday, today's Monday. I better take this off for the echo. This is Monday October 10th. And yesterday I, I uh to have a conversation with my wife and I said, yeah, I gotta spend less time making videos and doing blog posts. I need to somehow accelerate these books. And this is video. Number three for the day came inside because my hands were freezing, my toes still hurt. Uh But as I was cleaning up for the day, um God reminded me that there was one more thing he asked me to talk about. So here we are. Um I watched a video recently from a gal who was talking about the example her father provided. And um I guess when he was a, a student while he was a student in college, he spent a lot of time and effort filling in the blanks of his life. That's not gonna make sense. I'll come back to it. Um trying to uh learn as much as he could from the resources that he had available. Um What do I mean by filling in the blanks? So when you try to prioritize your life, you need to start with the things of greatest value and you make sure they're on your schedule on a daily basis, a weekly basis, a monthly basis, a yearly, any, um, time scale that you want to think about. Uh, you make sure that the things that are vital for where you want to be and who you want to be here in place first and then you fill in the gaps. And what this is like is if you have a mason jar and the really important things are like golf balls and the less important things are like grains of rice, you put all the golf balls in first and once you allocate time and resources for those, whatever's left changes the equation. The optimization process for um the rice you dump whatever rice fills the the jar can fit in there. That's what you dump in. But if you put that same amount of rice in first, the, the golf balls won't fit. I was talking with my kids about that just last night. So anyway, this guy, he, he found out what the golf balls were and was working on those things. And then he optimized the grains of rice to fit in the gaps. So he was doing college stuff for golf balls. And then he spent the balance of his time trying to use that the extras as well as he could. And this was uh interesting for me to hear because I did this myself. Um in college and I found myself, uh, well, I'll tell you the, I guess I'll just, I'll just tell you the story, I'll try and make it quick. But as a graduate student I happened to be working on a project, uh, this is in computer science at BYU and I happened to be working on a project where I was using a supercomputer, um, to run some really beefy code. It took a long time to run even on the supercomputer. Um But anyway, I, it was, it was a lot like my experience in the military where, or at least that part of grad school where it's just doing the research um in the military, almost everything is, is like mad rush of having to do everything all at once or very little to do. But you can't really do too many productive things when there's very little to do because you never know when everything's gonna collapse and everyone's in panic mode again. So that's kind of how it was with this uh computer science research because I had, I never knew when a program was gonna crash or finish and uh everything was sequential. So I had to be ready for the next step. But if I tried to anticipate it too much, I'd lose track of where I was and make mistakes. And anyway, so you get the drift. So I had these unpredictable pockets of time. And um the Lord said to me, you know, you're at uh an institution that has the largest library of Mormon literature in the world. And uh I found out that I had as a grad student if I remember correctly. I think I had some insane um number of books I could check out at a time and I may or may not have had special privileges of what I could check out. Like, it would normally be a reference book, but I was able to take it out of the library. I don't remember. But at, at some point I made sure I had an, an immense stack of uh rare books usually on my desk. Um And, and between the, you know, the first priority was getting through my, my research for my degree. But when I had a minute, I would just pick up where I left off in the next book, I took notes as I went and that actually turned out to it turns out that that turned out to be a really critical pivot point in my life that I never would have anticipated. Um I wanted to say one other thing about that and I'm trying to remember what that was. Um Thanks for allowing me a moment of silence here. Um Maybe it'll come back to me. I don't, I don't remember. Um Anyway, um there's a theme that I've written about before, but probably not for a long time. And probably it was in some older blog posts But uh moses' father-in-law, his name was Jethro. And um it's interesting, you know, we gloss over scriptural stories and just we get used to them and then we don't see them for what they really are. We, we lose details and especially emotions as we're reading these stories, we lo we lose sight of what it must have been like to go through these things, which is a real shame because we, we lose the applicability to our lives to a large extent that way. But when you think about Moses and actually think about what his life must have been like um growing up in the household of Pharaoh, um just trying to shorten what could be said about this. Uh He basically lived several lives, several rich lives in one life. And so by the time he met Jethro, he had, um and I mean, specifically Jethro came to him after he had liberated the Israelites and gone through a whole lot of experiences. Um And Jethro had some suggestions for him uh and how to manage the, the issues of the camp of Israel. And he actually listened to what Jethro had to say and uh Moses is described as a particularly meek person. Um But that, that's a, that's still kind of a shocker to see someone that had, had as many experiences and, and frankly, as many victories as he had both on the battlefield and uh in civil affairs and government. Um And just material type ways. I mean, he, he grew up in the wealthiest household in the world at the time. Um And as a member of the family, not just, you know, a, as a servant or something. So, um and then all the experiences with God and in leading this extremely numerous people um is really something, but Jethro had a good idea and he was open minded to, to hearing it and he did and he implemented it because it was a good idea. He was really grateful for it. Anyway, um I think anybody who's uh lived a rich life can look back and enumerate a very long list of Jethro's in their life. And uh these people um they matter a lot. Now, I'm thinking about mine right now. I'll, I'll give you a tiny example. There's a guy um named Roger who I met um kind of circumstantially meaning that, that this, there was no reason for this person to become a major factor in my life uh from the outside. But I saw in him several things that I admired. Um I learned just from context clues a little bit about him. And then as I made an effort to get to know him, I learned more about him and basically, um I treated him like um like an orange that I was trying to, to juice. And I, I extracted every drop of value that I could from the guy because there were a lot of, a lot, there was a lot to him that was valuable. They didn't have in my life at the time. So as a small example of this one time he mentioned in passing that he read um an entire book that morning to prepare for something he had to do. And I said, you read, you mean you finished the book this morning? He said, no, I read the whole thing this morning. I said, how does that work? He said, well, I speed read it. Have you ever heard of speed reading? And I said, no, what's that? And uh he told me, and so all of a sudden I had knowledge of something that I didn't know existed before that was uh with an explanation of why it was beneficial and an example that it was possible. And I thought to myself, I could really use this. I don't have a lot of time, but there are a lot of things I wanna read. And um so I asked him to tell me a little bit about how it was done and then I googled it and I looked it up a little bit more and basically a very short while later I knew how to speed read. And that has made a tremendous difference in my life. That was one very tiny thing I got from him. I got a lot of other things too. But my whole life has been this composite of death rose. And it's the weirdest thing because as I met each of these people, I saw all these things in them instantly that I thought, well, not all these things. There's at least one thing about them that I thought I don't have that and I want that. It's good. It's better than what I have or I don't have anything like it. I'm going for it. And, um, as that chain continued with more and more links, so I would mine out everything someone had to offer and then move on to the next one. So like an improvement vampire, right? Um And, but like they weren't hurt by this, if anything, I was vastly increasing their value, uh the value that they contribute to the world because I basically said if you have something good and you can share it with me, I'll pay any price like let's do this and I went from person to person and um sometimes those things weren't conveyable or they didn't want to share them with me. So, but knowing about them and seeing they were possible was enough for me to go get it for myself or at least to pray to God and ask him to show me how to get it or to pray to him and ask me, ask him to give it to me. And so um uh the unfortunate thing about this is um our ability to perceive value in what's around us. Is it it, it starts out highly limited and it only um it only increases as we make use of what's around us. So there's a fly buzzing in this room and it's driving me nuts. So you're gonna see it fly across the screen. Uh uh So, um yeah, like I needed something else to be distracting. Uh So I recover my train of thought here, get it back on the track. Um So our ability to perceive what has value depends on how well we use the things that have value that we see already. That that was a mouthful. But um basically the gateway to everything that is better is whatever you currently see as what's best . I hope that made sense. Um So these death rows are the gateway of obtaining more of what they have that's beneficial and they're also the gateway to what exists beyond that that you don't even know about yet. And if I think about this, I don't have time to make the case for it scripturally just yet , but it's something that you'll see in books. Uh I think this is like 12 books from now. So it's gonna be a little while. But um that, that's one reason I'm making the video about it right now. Uh So if you have ears to hear, you don't have to wait. Uh And there's a reason for that. But um anyway, rec I made a video a little while ago about the financial and material aspect of this principle of making use of what you have access to today. Uh And that one was more oriented to the, the fact that whatever you have materially right now, uh you're not gonna have it in the future. And that's a weird unique situation that we're in because we live in the end times. But so in that case, it's like you think you have this, whatever this is, I don't want to be too specific and put ideas in your head because you need to figure that out with God. But uh you think you have this, well, in a very short time, you're not gonna have this and uh you'll have either the knowledge that you spent whatever it is you had to obtain things of eternal worth or you will have massive regret because someone told you you were gonna lose it all and you didn't believe them. And then when you did, you knew it was true. N set. That's the TLDR from that last video. Um But there's like a less depressing version of this principle, which is that, um and it's not de, by the way, it's not depressing because uh our hearts are focused on worldly things and when they're taken away, that makes us upset. I mean, that's obviously that's gonna be true for a lot of people, but it should be depressing for everyone because uh it's like, it's like you're, you're a kid in a family of a bunch of kids. And you're the only one that's not a selfish jerk. And uh you know, your parents give you all some nice thing and all of your siblings break it and the parents say this is why I can't give you nice things, but you didn't do anything wrong. So that's kind of why it's depressing. But uh not to take that analogy too far for various reasons. But um there's an application, this principle of non material things, which is what I'm trying to talk about . Sources of improvement, information, basically, knowledge, character. So you have resources, right? This second just, just scattered across your life. And it's like you're sitting in a gold mine and you have a pickaxe, you have all the equipment you need. And the question is, what are you doing with it? And the funny thing about this is you, like, no one really knows they're sitting in a gold mine and all you can see is right, what's on the face of the stone? You don't know what's behind it because the only way to see that is to dig in. And so how do you get to the good stuff? Well, find the best looking spot and start digging and if it thins out to the point where the stuff that's on the original wall back in the start of the cave looks better than where you are. Go back to that. It's really that simple. So the funny thing. I, there's a lot of funny things. Uh, one of the things I find hilarious about the way God has done things is that so much is obfuscated and yet so much is so simple. And, uh, one of the simple things is you get to everything is better by going through what you see is best right now. I don't, it's, that's how it is. I'm telling you, I've dug some dirt folks and I'm telling you that's the way it is. And um I, I don't know of any counterexample to this argument and I've looked and I've lived so um yeah, that's, that's kind of it. Uh There's a lot more that could be said, I guess, but finding the best available to you and mining that out completely. Um And then just being aware of the best you've seen so far and going back to other things if you or if something new pops up because our lives aren't static caves. Uh We get new people coming into our lives, we get new situations, we move, we change jobs and on and on life changes around us, the world changes. You just kind of have to have just poke up your head every once in a while while you're digging while you're catching your breath and honestly assess the situation. And I think, uh I will say, I think maybe one thing that makes this difficult is we fail to separate um execution from creative um exploration. So, so like planning versus execution or uh designing uh a plan versus executing the plan. Uh The, the dichotomy is something like that and uh it's easy to get so locked into execution that you don't, you don't pay attention to when the, when the plan needs to change. And you have new evidence that suggests that um in a lot of situations in my life, I've worked with people and we've been working on a very large project and, um, I guess I have a lot of experience in flip flopping between the, these two, these two, I guess, uh, tasks and I notice other people don't and I try to help them. See. So 11 tendency in human nature for sure is to keep going down the execution path. Well, after you have plenty of reasons to know why it's not gonna work. And I've seen people waste so much time and money, uh, doing that. It's really sad because I don't know what it is about human nature. I made another video about this today that, that we have such a bias towards avoiding change even when it's really obvious that change is needed or that what we're doing right now isn't delivering what we're seeking. And for whatever reason, it's just really hard for people to let go and, and change and, uh, good luck, good luck progressing with God with, without being ok with change because you're just saying I'm gonna stay the way I am and that's worse than it sounds because you haven't tested how you are against everything that actually is. Our lives are like we live in this little bubble of vastly reduced experience uh exposure to consequences. And the point of life is to have that bubble expand. And for some people, the bubble will come off that that is the goal uh to just throw something out there without explaining at all, at all. That's the difference between salvation and eternal life. But um people just stay in their little bubble like that's life and then they get all surprised and a lot of times upset when what should have been super obvious that that's not reality when that bubble pops, they were really unhappy and that's sad. Um And I don't know that anyone gets through life without the bubble popping and it should be obvious to just look around to see that happening all the time. But even if you did, somehow the bubble's gonna pop after death, I promise you that. And uh you'll understand that it's not a bubble and that is a really simple way of explaining what hell is. So anyway, I didn't want to go down all those roads. But um I just wanted to solemnly invite you to consider the resources that you have in your life and to make the greatest use of them because they will not be around forever in more ways than one, we live in a time where opportunities are quickly closing. And, um you know, for years , I told people that there would come a day when my blog was not as accessible. I told them uh to copy anything they found value in. And when that day came, uh I got emails from people that were long time readers and they, they, oh, I, I didn't, you know, can you send me this one? Can you send me? And I said no, sorry, I, I can't. And there have been one or two cases where I, I guess I did look something up or I said something again, but I can't go back. I don't have time. There's, there are more important things to do and um I knew that day would come and um, I'm telling you if there are books that you want to get, get them. Now, if they are electronic resources that you find value in, if there's any way to get those locally do it, if there are people in your life who have something to offer you and you haven't extracted that value fully do it because things are going to change the ability to post videos to the internet like this. For example, it's not gonna be here forever and maybe it'll seem like it's taking longer than you might have expected to change. But I promise you things like this, they, they take longer than you think they're going to, and then they happen much more suddenly than you expected. And you're gonna see this play out over and over and over again. And so, um, I think very carefully about the value that surrounds you and make the most of it today because it won't always be there. And if you play your cards, right? And you use the resources, God has dispensed to you as, um , as their apparent value, uh suggests you will be led to resources of greater value that will continue. But there is coming a time where things of value are far less accessible. And this is uh I'm principally talking about ideas and people. So make the most of it today.