Hey, It's James. This is are you listening,
and I'm just gonna talk freely for a
minute about.
Life. I mean, isn't that what we think
about all the time, whether it might be
something specific, it might be something that, you
know, was on our mind or might be
a problem,
but ultimately, we're we're talking about life. I
mean, if we're thinking about how the tires
need to be replacing the car
or if we're talking about how we need
to the yard or we need to go
see the eye doctor or we're having trouble
with their marriage or 1 of our kids
is not well, the or whatever it is.
It's it's it's about life. It's life. So
life is
what's always on our mind. Even if it's
something like, man, I need to go to
the game I wanna go play this or
I wanna go do something fun. I wanna
go to a movie. That is life. So
we're living life every single day, and a
lot of times, we're not as we're not...
Living life as much as we're thinking about
life and we're pondering
things. And in that pondering, we find ourselves
extremely disco
in some is some some sense. For example,
many of us are just thinking about the
past.
We're sitting in our feelings. We're sitting in
our thoughts and it's very natural. It's very
normal. It's something that happens very organically, and
we don't even realize that we're doing it,
but we... We find ourselves in this lull,
and then the next thing we know we're
just rum and we're contemplating. And we're having
conversations. If you're like me, I have conversations
if my head about. Well, if I said
this or if they'd said that or
whatever,
or I think about how I feel
and then I become more of a victim
even if I was, and there's nothing... I'm
not diminishing that idea, I'm just saying that
when I... Stay there in my mind, I'm
living in a world that is no longer
real because I'm living in a real experience,
or a wondered experience about the way I
wish something had gone or
trying to establish a grounded or an explanation
of wyatt went the way it went.
And then the other side of that is
that we sit around with the contemplation about
what tomorrow is gonna bring what's the future
gonna be like? And I've lived a majority
of my life.
I lived over 4 and a half to
over 4 and a half decades.
With this mindset? You know,
where where's tomorrow gonna be? Do I have
things ready for tomorrow Do I have things
ready for 5 years from now? And where
I'm gonna be when I'm 30? I'm not
gonna be when I'm 40. Where I'm gonna
be when I'm 50. And now that that
has come,
I'm not gonna do that to 60. I'm
not gonna sit here.
And and and look to tomorrow. You know
what does that look like? Well, we worry
about things. It's called anxiety. We worry about
things and we wonder, you know, is is
it gonna be any better? Can I get
this now fixed?
Well, if I didn't do yesterday. Correct? How
am I ever gonna get to where you
see. So we end up skipping over
where we actually are, which is right now,
I'm recording at my desk in my house
looking at a camera talking to you
this is where I am right now. So
I don't need to be worrying about
what just came out of my mouth. I
don't need to be worrying about what I'm
going to say in just a moment.
And whether or not this is gonna record
correctly or what it sounds like or did
I0I didn't do anything with my hair today.
So I'm gonna look like a bum instead
of a professional
we we do this to ourselves
because we're not mindful of the fact that
we're not living in the moment. And how
how
how else does that happen. I mean, we've
got we've got cell phones and and digital
things. I mean, you're watching me on a
phone most likely or at least you know,
probably, some digital device.
Course, you have to be. I mean, this
is not playing out into the ether. It's
not it's not being broadcasting into the clouds.
Thank God. But you know, we're we're... We
we live in this place. We live in
this place and when we discover it to
get to my point.
We try to fix it. Like, I gotta
fix it. I gotta stop worried about the
past. I gotta stop worried about the future.
I've gotta stop thinking about what happened gotta
start living in the present. So then we
become obsessed
unconsciously about mindfulness and and and present and
and trying to establish routines and disciplines that
actually don't work
because we're trying to fix something. We're trying
to repair something.
Well, I can't repair
4 decades of of
rum illumination. I can't repair
4 decades of having conversations in my head,
trying to establish a clear path from the
past to the future,
because that clear path is right the second.
That clear path is today. So there are
a lot of things that I've learned. I've
learned that if I establish a very
strong list of core values, things of... That
would say, what I think is valuable and
what I believe and who I am in
those values, my identity becomes very strong
and that everything in my life flows
from those values.
So I don't fix my life,
I recreate it. I don't fix my thinking.
I recreate it.
It becomes new.
You know, the Bible talks about these things
it says behold, the old is gone the
new as come,
that when we think about gospel,
regeneration, the spiritual side of
salvation, the the the awareness, the repentance. That's
a change of disposition, the transformation of the
mind,
which majority of the new testament talks about
things. The way we think and know and
understand.
It's not as much about doing as it
is understanding which produces the doing. So
We see this
explanation continually, and it's not just in the
Christian faith it's in many different disciplines of
philosophy, and and mystic system and and and
and everything else, even though, you know, there's
a con... There's
intersectionality there
The point I'm making is every human being
when they take just a few moments to
think comes to the conclusion.
That we've gotta change the way we think,
Not fix it.
And so in doing that, it's got to
become new It's got to become a a
place a person a mind that lives truly
based on these values based on the foundation
based on,
what is now old and gone. So for
years, I disciplined myself to
be better to think better to posture better
to have more discipline. Those aren't bad things.
But I did so in a way of
trying to transform
something into something else
rather than that old thing just being put
away and the new thing becoming.
Not not make sense to you.
But then some of you might be saying.
That's right. That's exactly right. So, yeah, that's
it.
You've gotta to become new. You've got to
realize that it's not about mastering life.
It's about discovering life.
You're not gonna get it all right. You're
knock gonna know at all. You're not going
to us... You're not gonna have perfection.
A friend of mine said let's past week,
he said something about perfection.
He said that the way he frames it
is that he strive for perfection, but the
wisdom and the knowledge knowing that it's una
unsustainable.
So therefore, he's not trying to
run a fool Errand.
He's
realizing that just a little bit better.
And that's a very
subjective
idea. But just a little bit better
or a little bit more drive a little
bit more focus,
and the way I answer that from me
is a little bit more discovery.
I learn,
I think.
Listen,
I share.
I teach.
And then I listen,
and I discover.
The question then is are you discovering
life?
Are you learning? Are you learning to take
the pains of yesterday?
The worries of tomorrow.
And ask yourself, Who am I? What do
I need?
What do I want?
Am I heading in that direction today?
If you value joy,
then do everything
right now
that establishes joy.
If you value
authenticity.
Than do everything right now
that establishes authenticity.
And when the things that are in your
life that get in the way of those
things.
Just take them away.
Don't try to recreate them.
Dummy don't try to don't try to massage
them and make them work,
That won't recreate you, that will tie you
down.
Just
take them away.
Take them away.
And that's a lot easier said than done.
So that's why I'm here. Me and a
lot of other people like me.
Here to help you. Here to help you
walk.
Here to help you listen
because that's really where discovery starts.
So are you listening?