Discovering Life – A Journey [ep142]

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?