March 18, 2021 • 38 mins
It has been a year since this pandemic began its devastating effects on the US. It was literally on my birthday (March 11th) when the US began its lockdown and the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. I took this week to think about some of the lessons I have learned so far from this difficult year. What have you learned from the pandemic? I would love to hear! You can email me your own reflections at matt@livingthereal.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Boettger (00:00):
My life has changed dramatically over the
past year.
And I'm guessing I'm not theonly person who feels this way
since March of 2020, we enteredinto this pandemic.
And none of us knew what we wereexpecting to get ourselves into.
It was so unknown.
I think we had an intuition thatsomehow on some level, this was
going to change us.
This was going to cause clearlyfrustration, but I didn't know
(00:23):
how much it would change mepersonally.
This episode of the podcast isjust talking about the seven.
Things I have learned so far andit's still unfolding.
I don't even know where theseare going to land eventually,
but these seven powerfulrealities by which I have
learned invaluable lessons overthe course of this past year.
Clearly my life has changed inpractical ways, how I received
(00:44):
packages in the mail orgroceries, and then cleaning
them off, seeing people and notseeing people masking around,
social distancing.
All these different thingschanged me in a practical way,
but then it began to permeateand penetrate my mind and how I
see things.
And then as things unfolded andthings became political and the
black lives matters, all thisstuff happened and it began to
(01:07):
really enforce a differentoutlook in my own mind.
Now some things didn't changedramatically, but it deepened my
awareness of what it means forme.
To live the most real lifepossible generally.
And then in the context of apandemic, it made it all the
more, visceral and real.
And I want to share the seventhings I've learned this far,
(01:29):
and I'm sure it's going tochange and mold as I continue.
So once again, I'm Matt.
Bottger welcome to living thereal, I hope this week.
This week is the most real lifepossible yet for you let's get
going.
(01:49):
Are you living the most reallife possible?
I asked myself this question allthe time.
Most of the time, the answer isI just don't know, but sometimes
the answer is definitely not.
This is why I have this podcast.
I'm Matt Bucher, and welcome tothe show.
Two small things.
If you get a chance, pleaseleave a review like on Apple
podcasts and also check out mywebsite, live in the real.com
(02:13):
where I offer lots of resourcesand how to live the most real
life possible.
Now on with the show.
Okay.
So let's get to it.
My seven things that I havelearned so far that I think are
really important.
So I want you to listen upclosely.
Now I know in some of thesepodcasts, I go deep, but this is
how I think this is how I feel.
This is all about me trying tofigure out how.
(02:35):
To live the most real, authenticlife possible.
And it requires some deep divesometimes.
So listen up, listenintentionally, Hey, it's a
podcast.
This is where you can pause it,reflect, listen to it again.
But I know without a doubt thatby listening to this in a
complete episode, this is goingto impact you.
This is going to have adifference in your own life and
(02:55):
it's going to make this weekslightly more real So I want to
start with my lesson.
Number one.
Now these are actually in theright order.
These aren't random, these buildon one another, and I want you,
and I hope that you see this.
And I really, really more thananything, hope that you get some
good stuff from this, but whatyou can carry forward today and
tomorrow.
Now the number one lesson, ormaybe not the number one, but
(03:18):
lesson number one.
That I've learned is that lifeis complicated.
Life is complicated and here'sthe big thing.
It's okay.
It's totally okay that it'scomplicated.
Now, this was a big revelationto me in a particular sense.
The first is a realization thatlife is not linear.
(03:39):
Now.
I don't think that's too much ofa surprise to maybe listeners
that life is not linear.
That there's things all overcoming at us from different
directions and making claim toour lives.
And there's just not a linearanswer to the complications of
life.
Now, this was a problem my past,this is why this is big for me.
And it's something that Ihaven't really figured out yet
(04:01):
in the sense of, I haven'tallowed it to really impact my
life that tremendously.
Because before this awareness,so to speak, or at least the
deepening of the awareness, Itried to strip down my life to
make it easier.
Matt (04:14):
You what happened?
There was an enormous amount ofcollateral damage and stripping
my life down to make it easierbecause what happened was it
came at the expense ofrelationships.
I would oversimplifyrelationships and make them
easy.
And I would have to in somesense mold them to fit my own
framework.
Goes back to last week'sepisode, going from the inside
(04:35):
out rather than the outside in,if you have listened to it and
listened to it, it's important.
And what happened?
I ended up treatingrelationships badly.
People are hurt.
People are offended.
People felt judged because Istripped them down to fit into a
particular kind of mold to makeit simpler.
Now.
The goal is still to make simpledecisions in my life.
(04:57):
I'm not trying to look at theoutside world and say, it's
complicated.
So then my life needs to becomplicated.
That's not it at all.
It's rather (05:05):
it's the realization that life is
complicated, but my life doesn'thave to be complicated in the
response to that.
So I can still make simpledecisions without having to
strip reality down.
That's the goal.
This is the biggest, I think,gift that I've received in this
particular lesson.
Is that there, there is not acontradiction and looking at a
(05:27):
life of someone else orsomething, and yet still
maintain your own simplicity inyour own life.
You don't have to stripsomething down to make it fit
and make it easier.
You can maintain and hold itscomplexity like a human being
and yet still respond to it witha simple gesture that I'm still
trying to work out to this veryday, but I know this to be true,
(05:49):
and I'm trying to caution myselfand trying to strip people and
things down too quickly.
So I can quickly make adecision.
We're gonna talk more about thisin a second.
That was a big revelation to me.
So when I talk about.
The complications of life.
I'm not necessarily talkingabout life being extra
difficult, but rather that lifecircumstances are multithreaded.
(06:13):
Again, it's idea that life isjust not linear that it's
complicated and they have manythreads involved.
The pandemic really awoken me tothis reality.
Take this, for example, this isjust came to the top of my head
and five minutes, just riffingthrough the different threads of
the pandemic that make itcomplicated.
Thread number one, it's anunknown virus, it spreads
quickly, it kills many asexponential growth.
Thread two (06:36):
the safety of people we serve.
But the safety in many differentforms: psychological safety, the
physical safety, the economicsafety.
Thread three (06:46):
just time.
We don't know about the virus,you to make an urgent decision.
It's complicated.
So you need to make decisionsquickly.
Thread a number four (06:53):
the financial and other resources
available to actually helpaddress the pandemic.
What kind of resources do wehave?
Do we have enough?
Thread five (07:01):
the historical precedent of a pandemic, looking
at the past at other pandemicsto see what worked and what
didn't, and at least tryingthose to begin with, not knowing
whether the work or not, but weneed to start somewhere right or
wrong Thread six (07:13):
changing information and misinformation,
as things begin to evolve andbecome more of a pandemic, we
learned more about the virus.
And then by learning more, wehave to change.
And of course information waschanged, but then sometimes that
turned to misinformation.
That became an element ofsuspicion.
Thread seven (07:31):
the healthcare system.
What was needed to keep thehealth care system afloat during
times of surges, Thread numbereight: lack of preparedness.
Knowing that we, as a country,weren't quite prepared for this
pandemic.
And so we needed to buy timegoing back to time to, to get
things ready, to be able toaddress...
(07:53):
well, the issues, the caseswell.
Better diagnostic tools, bettermedical resources, more medical
resources.
Trying to find better treatmentsto try to buy some time doing
extraordinary measures to buytime so that we could better
address it.
And maybe thread nine (08:09):
clinical versus observational.
It is one thing to do clinicaldata to understand what the
virus is doing.
And then there's observationaldata of what the actual virus is
doing.
And sometimes those can be atodds to each other.
And how do you understand theobservational data can be
misleading.
Take flu as a great example.
People start to think that, Ohmy gosh, COVID really isn't
(08:31):
spreading as much as we thoughtpeople aren't dying nearly as
much.
So why are we doing lockdowns?
That's a complicated question.
And then what helped make senseof it for me was the flu.
Because the flu came this winterand it was non-existent.
Why?
Because it was justcoincidental.
No, because people were takingmeasures for COVID that had an
(08:52):
enormous amount of impact on theflu.
So that was a good piece ofevidence to suggest.
Wow.
Could you imagine if we didn'tdo these things where we would
be at with COVID.
If normally we'd have 50,000cases of the flu and we have 18
at this point in time, December,January, February, because of
what we've done.
(09:12):
Could you imagine what theimpact would have been?
If we didn't do anything withCOVID, how bigger the numbers
would be.
So you see all these differentthreads happening, right?
This is not an episode about thepandemic necessarily, but it
shows you how life is nonlinear.
There's multiple threadsinvolved here.
And then on the flip side ofthings, you have the idea of the
linear approach.
(09:33):
That COVID is not real COVID isa plot for one world rule,
pushing communism or socialism.
And these theories are groundedin other theories, which are
based on other theories, butnothing that's actually real or
substantial.
Let's talk about relationshipsnow, using this as an analog.
How me right.
Has a tendency to shape thingsin such a way to make it simple.
(09:54):
That he is just being a"D" or a"B".
I'm not going to say the word,right?
Somebody who's just being bad.
You can't stand it.
You're judging them, she's justa terrible person, but what's
behind that.
That's like the conspiracytheories.
But being able to uphold thecomplications of someone's life.
Let's take that same example ofthe threads and unpack that just
briefly in light of arelationship.
Thread number one (10:16):
unknown circumstances of their life,
their history, their present,their perceived future.
Do you know about it?
Do you know what the, but theirpast is like?
What got them to this point?
Why they're acting that way.
Tread two (10:27):
the safety of the person we are engaging.
Their psychological safety,their physical safety, their
economic safety, their emotionalsafety.
Do you know where they're at?
Do they feel threatened in anyone of those environments that
might be contributing to howthey're behaving with you?
Thread three (10:42):
the time.
Moving from one thing to thenext you're so busy, you have no
time to breathe and that canmake you a short tempered
person.
Because they have so manyobligations to stay alive for
themselves or their family.
Did you consider that Threadfour: financial and other
resources.
Limited resources for them tomake them feel free?
They don't feel free becausethey have such limited
(11:03):
resources.
They feel the stress.
So it's hard for them to bepresent to the people around
them.
Thread five (11:08):
the historical precedent.
How were they raised?
How were they taught to behavethis way.
They were raised up with itneeds to be corrected.
Absolutely.
But they're just not completelyutterly to blame here.
It's complicated.So sitting withwith them is maybe a really
advantageous thing and not justjudging them so quickly.
Thread six (11:31):
changing information.
Life has so many changingvariables with no anchor and it
can be overwhelming.
If they're constantly having achanging reality with no anchor,
no substantial reality in theirlife to be grounded in, that
makes somebody reallyvulnerable.
It can make them reactive.
And over-reactive because theyfeel threatened about
everything.
Cause there's no a refuge forthem.
(11:52):
There's no safety in their life.
Thread seven (11:55):
lack of preparedness.
Maybe they don't have enoughprotection in their life to
engage life proactively.
And so they have this kind oflens by which they look at the
world reactively.
And it's not just because that'swhat they want.
It's because it's, the life hasbeen dealt to them in some
circumstance And thread nine: what do you see versus what is (12:11):
undefined
really going on?
What are you seeing is a symptomof a deeper reality?
In reality, as a cry for help,it's a cry for a vulnerability,
feeling out of control, feelinglonely, feeling afraid.
And instead of going around andgoing how bad they are and how
to judge them.
Gosh, realizing that life iscomplicated.
(12:34):
It doesn't mean that we respondequally with a complicated
response that makes thingsworse.
We can respond with a genuine,simple answer, like empathy,
sitting with someone, a hug, anembrace, just feelings of
Goodwill towards that person cango a long way.
So this has been reallyimportant for me and still
(12:54):
shaping me in ways that I have along way to go.
The conclusion on this one (12:58):
we will fill the gap between
experience and expectation withGoodwill.
And lean into discovery overthat of determination: judging
them.
They're just an idiot.
But discovery and thecomplication, the problem
without making your own lifecomplicated.
So, while life is trulycomplicated, which is a huge
realization to me, our livesdon't have to be complicated.
(13:21):
It's grounded in two bigprinciples: Goodwill towards the
person.
Or at least filling that gap ofthe experienced expectation.
I expected this as someoneexperienced this and that sucks.
And then discovery.
Understanding the complexity oftheir life, then responding with
a simple act of charity andlove, understanding.
(13:42):
Because you don't have all theanswers.
You really don't know what'sgoing on.
So that's number one, that lifeis complicated.
It's okay.
That it's complicated and thatwe don't force ourselves to
strip it down, thus strippingour relationships down because
that's not the way by which wecan inter life in a simple way.
The second one I learned thesecond lesson, which was
(14:03):
powerful for me is thatimperfection is the gold
standard.
Imperfection is the goldstandard and not perfection.
Now, where does this come from?
It's been the whole mask storyin the COVID pandemic.
Whether masks work or not work.
And what do we mean by work?
(14:23):
Cause some people had theunderstanding that no, clearly
masks don't prevent COVID ahundred percent times they don't
work.
And that was a big dismissal.
But in fact, they do work now.
Do they work 100% of the time.
No, but they are effective indiminishing the transmission of
the virus.
Imperfection is the goldstandard here.
(14:43):
That helps tremendously.
And why this is the next lessonthat I've learned is because in
the first lesson it'scomplicated.
It's okay.
The second lesson is theresponse to that complication.
And that our response is not aperfected response.
That just creates this insanitycycle, right?
We need an imperfect andcharitable and loving response
(15:05):
to the complexity of life.
You've heard me say this before,but the Pareto Principal is so
powerful here.
That 20% of our efforts provide80% of our rewards and value.
This has been proven over andover in so many different
circumstances.
And this just shows you thepursuit of imperfection is the
highest goal here.
Life's complexity is embracedwithout making our life
(15:29):
complicated by the ParetoPrinciple.
Because for me, the ideal, theideal that, which is not like a
imperfect, but the perfectedthing you're trying to achieve
that ideal sweeps, our legs outfrom unrested makes us collapse
a perfect example.
This is back in March in 2000,everyone was going crazy with
the pandemic.
What do we do?
It's unknown.
Is it on packages?
(15:49):
Are we going to get it by juststanding on our front porch with
nobody around?
And we're afraid.
In our home in like many otherhomes were overreacting.
Doing everything we can toprotect ourselves words, we were
aiming for the ideal.
Not one little virus will enterinto our home.
And what happened?
By us pursuing the ideal, wewent a week or maybe even two
(16:11):
weeks without refilling our handsoap pumps around all the
bathrooms.
And there were many bathrooms,at least two of the three that
didn't have soap in them.
That is a Perato Principle.
Basic things is to wash yourhands, but we were so succumbed
by all these other variables ofwashing off our vegetables and
packages and spraying our doorknobs and that we just were so
(16:32):
exhausted, we never got aroundto refilling the hand soap.
And it just took our legs outfrom under us.
And that's what life is likewhen we try to pursue the ideal.
It just makes things all themore difficult and we get
nowhere.
So lesson number three, andagain, they're all connected.
Systems really do save.
(16:53):
Systems save.
We saw this.
Right away in the pandemic, thatthe lack of good systems in the
US at least particularly led toa deeper crisis in the pandemic.
Not knowing how to handle it asa nation, but only on an
individual level.
This breakdown of systems madethe virus spread much more
(17:15):
quickly.
And this breakdown of systems ispartially due because of the
American sense of self-reliance.
Self-reliance,self-determination, is a
fundamental right, but it's notthe only right.
We just allow everyone to beresponsible themselves.
That's great when things aregoing well, but when there's a
pandemic or even a nationalcrisis, and it's calling for
(17:38):
national efforts to get rid ofit, to help it, to bring aid,
then we don't have the resourceavailable because we can't do
much on individual basis.
It requires a community.
In the midst of this learninglesson, the systems really do
save.
I've learned that we areconnected, whether we like it or
not.
And the pandemic has made thatutterly known.
(18:02):
Whether you want to be connectedor not, we are connected.
And no matter what you do, theimpact of other people's
behaviors is going to impactyou.
There's no way we can get aroundthis.
This requires us to let go ofsome of the individual rights
for the sake of the common good.
And we need to develop thesystems in place to be able to
(18:23):
take care of those around us.
I've been really into this ideaof lean principles.
Of trying to live the mostsimple life.
And not to store up too manythings, but just respond into
the moment of the circumstancesbefore you not try to create so
many scenarios that which maynot ever happen and try to plan
for them because it is wastedenergy.
(18:44):
To plan for that which is infront of you and maybe a little
bit of in front of you, butthat's about it.
To try to stay way away fromwasting too much energy and
things that just aren't going tohappen.
Well, this pandemic just totallyflipped that on its head of how
it works.
And really the only way we canactually live that way.
I think that's a great way tolive, to live the kind of
simplicity, not trying to thinkabout all the other things could
(19:05):
potentially happen in your lifeand plan for them.
You'll find yourself planningyour entire life without living
it, the only way that can reallywork is if you have something
above you, some entity above youthat can provide for those
casualties that come every oncein a while, that can't be fixed
by that kind of way of life.
I'm thinking of example, of justa kid or a child.
My boys (19:23):
six, five and three.
And how they had the freedom tojust live life spontaneously and
hurt themselves and forget abouttheir lunch.
And then also they're starving.
Because they have parents whoare thinking about that, and
helping them get them theirlunch and changing their clothes
and giving them their baths, andhelping them clean up.
(19:44):
They're able to have that kindof freedom because I'm there.
If they didn't have us, theywouldn't be to live that way.
They wouldn't live long.
Like that way.
Similarly, When times get tough,we can look to the government
that's meant to help us in thoserare moments to survive and to
be able to adjust.
And get through these difficulttimes.
The next one is (20:04):
we're constantly battling the fight
between effective and efficient.
I think this is related really,really, really related to the
above.
If I saw this in many localgovernment officials trying to
deal with COVID.
And what's effective and what'sefficient.
So speaking of systems comesright off the heels of this.
(20:27):
I've learned there is a greaterdistinction between efficiency
over effectiveness.
So what is efficiency?
Efficiency is really aboutconstraints.
Dealing with time, money,resource constraints.
It's a broad sweeping, often acourse of action, to be
efficient and can seem unjustlydiscriminatory at times.
(20:47):
Because you're just beingefficient.
You're trying to get somethinggoing something quickly because
of constraints.
And yeah, it may not be perfect,but it is efficient.
It gets the job done quickly.
And then there's effective.
This is oftentimes we do whenthere's maybe less constraints
involved, it's a more narrowsurgical option.
(21:09):
It's more targeted.
And I saw this balance betweenefficiency and effectiveness
throughout the pandemic, allover the place.
And people pointing thatgovernment officials and other
people as if they're beingdiscriminatory.
And that could have been thecase, or it could have been,
this is just humanity wrestlingwith that hard distinction
between being efficient andeffective.
(21:31):
I remember back in myundergraduate days, I took this
class in philosophy and theywere talking about how the God
can't exist.
Because you look at the world,it's just not efficient.
It's so inefficient.
It's almost unintelligible.
Now.
There's a lots of things I couldgo against with this, but just
taking that at face value.
I still had an answer.
Now my, by the way, myupbringing, my past is computer
(21:52):
science.
So I, at the time, particularlyI was in undergraduate school
getting my degree in computerscience.
So computers were at theforefront of my mind.
And I remember thinking look atcomputers, for example, now at
least back then they, things aredifferent.
And how is it back in thenineties, where there was a
spinning hard drive.
You don't, you barely see thatanymore.
There were slow.
And there's this thing calledRam, which still exists today,
(22:13):
which is this fast memory.
It's super fast.
And I remember thinking if youlooked at a computer, you say
the same thing.
It's Oh my gosh, look at this.
No person, no beam could createthis on their own.
Look at all this information.
All the most importantinformation about a computer is
stored on the slowest piece ofhardware, the spinning a hard
drive that makes no sense.
(22:33):
People know that we're only,strong as our weakest link.
And if you put all of the mostimportant information on the
weakest part of the computer,then you slow everything down.
This is stupid.
Who would have made this?
This is clearly just evolution,a computer.
Now if we realized no, somebodyreally made it and yes, it's
really is inefficient, butthere's a reason why.
(22:53):
Because Ram at that time andstill today was really
expensive.
And if you really filled thecomputer with all the Ram to
store all of your information,super fast Zippy it would cost
like$20,000.
Nobody can afford that.
So you made it economicallyefficient for them.
By making some inefficiencies inthe computer.
(23:16):
And so we say that about this aswell with God and the creation,
all that kind of stuff.
And the same thing here, dealingwith efficiencies,
inefficiencies, andeffectiveness in working that
balance.
And it's an important thing tobattle.
And my conclusion here becareful not to become suspicious
of someone, something when itvery well likely could be a
(23:37):
choice to prefer efficiency,over effectiveness.
And it's hard to know when to dowhich.
We need to know the why.
Look for the anomalies and theprinciples being governed to
know whether it's beingconsistent with their principles
or inconsistent.
And that helped me see betterabout when people were being
maybe shady or when people werejust trying to do their best and
(23:59):
maybe they screwed up, butthey're doing their best.
We need to go back to filling inthe gap between experience and
expectation with Goodwill.
Everyone is doing their bestwith the unknown realities,
whether it's COVID or anythingin their life.
And here's the big take home onthis.
In the end, we should prefereffectiveness over that of
efficiency when it comes topeople.
(24:22):
We should be efficient withthings and effective with people
in general.
And sometimes it's hard tomaintain that distinction.
Now somebody might fight thatand say, Ooh, effectiveness,
even with people is not verygood, because effectiveness is
all about trying to achieve someend, some proper result, which
kind of sounds like you're usingsomeone now.
What's the result I want to getwith the human being?
(24:43):
And this goes back to myprevious episode of living the
principle of the gift.
The biggest possible effect.
The biggest possible result Ican give to someone, right?
If I'm truly being effective ina relationship with someone in
my mind, is that when they arewith me, they feel more
themselves and not less thanthemselves.
And man, I suck at this in somany ways and really hard ways
(25:06):
and the most vulnerable where Ishould be exactly the opposite.
The most important relations mylife is where I fail at this.
But this is the ideal.
This is the effect I want togive.
I want to provide.
I want to be effective withpeople and efficient with
things.
Boy, I do know when I try to beefficient with people that's
really, really bad.
So we are constantly battlingthe fight between effective and
(25:29):
efficient and we need to be okaywith that.
Next one is the whole idea ofgift at verse grasp is real.
It is really, really real.
And I see this and I saw thispreeminently at the very
beginning of the pandemic whenpeople are going crazy grasping
at toilet paper, when there wasnone left for anyone.
And that's the paradigm which welive in.
(25:50):
The shift from grasp to gift.
There's a great book called theRise of Christianity.
This person who wrote this isnot a Christian, he's not a
believer.
He's not, he doesn't even havefaith.
We just studied on asocialogical level and he saw it
because he was wondering, he'sasking the question.
How on earth did christianitydidn't become such a dominant
religion in the first threecenturies with 12 fishermen,
starting it out who wereilliterate?
(26:13):
He realized one of the biggestpersuasive elements of
Christianity in the first threecenturies was that their ability
to love utter strangers,radically.
And now he gave a number ofexamples of when plagues, which
has somewhat aligned with whatwe're talking about.
When there was plagues and townsand how the talent would run out
of the town to escape theplague, even leaving their
friends and their family behindwho had the plague to fend for
(26:35):
themselves so they could escapeit and hopefully remain healthy.
And as they were leaving thetown, you would see these
Christians.
Walking into the town, like, whyare you doing this?
And then, cause they heard thatthere was a plague and they're
going in to help those.
And they were just mesmerizedand shocked by.
They don't even know thesepeople and they're going into a
town of strangers, into aplague, risking their lives to
(26:57):
help someone they don't evenknow.
And this happened over and overand over and it shaped the
culture and it made them lend anear towards the credibility of
Christianity.
That is the idea of gift right?
Going in and often yourselves asa gift together.
Whereas this idea of trying toget as much toilet paper is a
different kind of paradigm.
This is hoarding grasping.
(27:19):
It's my rights.
It's American individualismproceeding that of the good of
the other before me.
Now I saw the idea of giftinggoing on.
I saw Facebook posts asking andsaying, Hey, go to your
restaurant.
I know you can't get it, but buya bunch of gift cards.
So that when it is over, you canuse those gift cards, help
support them in creative ways.
That's gifting.
(27:39):
Even staying home is a gift.
Not going out and risking,contaminating other people and
transmitting the virus.
It was a weird concept of gift,but it was.
Wearing a mask is a gift.
It's a sacrificial gift.
It's small compared to what wejust talked about the first few
centuries, but it's a smallsacrifice.
It's a gift.
Nobody wants to do that.
(28:01):
It's actually saying, okay, Ihave desires of my own heart,
which is real, totally real, butI'm gonna put the good to the
other person before that, thedesires of my heart.
I'm not going to negate thedesires of heart, but I'm always
going to keep it checked to thegood of the person before me is
always a little bit higher.
So I want that it's a goodpractice to be in.
Okay, Self fulfilling propheciesinfiltrate our lives more than
(28:24):
we'd like to think that thisgoes right off the heels of the
last one.
The idea from gift from graspthe idea of the example of the
hoarding and March and April,there was a fear, a real fear
that there would be no food norsupplies.
And it was the fear itself thatcaused it.
And that awakened me to the deepsense of man self-fulfilling
prophecies are a lot more of areality than I would like to
(28:47):
think it is.
It'd be nice to blame otherpeople, but I'm wondering if
more so than I've ever thoughtbefore, that is our mindset
disposition that creates theserealities in my own mind, in my
life and your life as well.
Now, we create as much as wediscover.
This is absolutely true.
(29:07):
We create a solution to theworld's problems, through
discovery.
Or, we create more problems forthe world problems through
determination.
And we create these problems outof nowhere because of the way we
approach life and ourselves.
How we think is what oftentimeswhat we become and what we
(29:28):
provide to the world around us.
Now clearly there's anundeniable, like manifestation
idea behind all this.
But I want to put that in aboundary because I'm cautious
about this.
So yes, we do manifest stuff andI'm cautious on how much we do.
But I do know that the way wethink contributes greatly on how
we behave and how we act.
Next lesson (29:50):
Change and even retraction does not mean lack of
competence.
When we change our own mind, wegrow.
It doesn't mean lack ofcompetence, all this all over.
Now, why is this important forme.
Because I have a tendency not towant to change.
The best example of this is whenI first got my brand new Nissan
(30:12):
Altima, 2008.
So excited about it.
I only had it for a year and itwas coming back home from
Nebraska, with my sister and herhusband and their child, my
nephew.
And I had my bike on top of therack And I forgot about it
because we've been driving foreight hours from Nebraska to
Colorado.
And I was pulling in my car portand I ran right into the carport
(30:32):
with my bike on top of it.
And what did I do?
Did I stop?
As soon as I heard the crunch ofmy bike.
No! I literally kept pulling inthe car port.
I didn't stop.
I didn't change.
It kept on going.
And now I remain calm the wholetime, but didn't get very angry,
even though I destroyed my car,you know, somewhat.
And it was brand new.
(30:53):
But that image of me notstopping what I was doing and
not changing and not causingmore damage to my car, haunts
me.
Cause that's what I do with mylife.
I just keep going up.
I made this decision.
I'm going to keep going becauseI'm going to be in integrity
with myself and I will beintegrity with my stupidity.
And I realize I do this sooften.
(31:15):
I make my decision and I'mresolute.
I just keep on going.
I don't learn.
Again, this goes back to why Ilove Living the Real so much in
this concept discovery.
I'm not allowing the outsideworld to shape and mold me and
change and make me grow.
I get stubborn.
And I stick with it.
And that Nissan Altima drivingin the car port is allowing it
to scrape my entire car is aperfect, terrible example of my
(31:36):
inability to change on the spot.
What does this mean for us?
How do we be in the live thisidea of allowing ourselves to be
changed and molded and grow andnot be stuck in our own ways?
And in this idea that we changeis not a sign of incompetence.
It's a sign of maturity andgrowth.
When you do big things, the planbig, enormous realities.
It's harder to change them.
(31:56):
It's a kind of perennial exampleof a rocket ship going into
outer space.
And it's going so fast that youcan only make small incremental
changes because it's just somuch going on at that moment.
It's now too late to make bigchanges.
You put all your eggs in onebasket.
Versus, if you go small andslow, you can iterate very much
more quickly and change insmaller ways and faster ways.
(32:17):
So to help me to invest smallamounts of time, energy
resource, towards things, tohelp me create my own natural
feedback loop of life so I canchange and grow and not be so
stubborn.
And try not to put my eggs allin one basket and just keep on
trucking forward in spite of allthings.
Again, like last episode, it's apriority is the outside world
informing me not imposing myworld on the world.
(32:41):
So again, the conclusion thisallow life to be the feedback
loop, and commit to intervalslarge enough to make progress,
but small enough to allowchange, change in your life.
And the last thing I learnedfrom this.
This is powerful, and this is aone it's still unraveling.
I don't fully understand, andthis is has changed me the most,
and it's really scary for me.
(33:02):
And that is fear is not to befeared.
Fear is not to be feared.
Now, what am I talking abouthere?
I have had a tendency to believethat fear is a vice.
If you fear you're weak.
But I realized this is not true.
And I seen this with thepandemic.
With people using fear to judgepeople and make them the lesser.
(33:26):
Gaslighting people out of thename of fear.
I realize what is fear, butnothing, but the proper servant
of love for the imperfectsaints.
Quote that I found.
Fear is the proper servant oflove for the imperfect saints.
Fear recognizes the fragility oflife and love.
That it is fragile.
(33:46):
And this is the hardest one forme to really take in, and I
don't know where I'm going to gowith this, to be honest, but I
know it to be true.
I've been accustomed to run awayfrom fear.
Why?
Because it makes me feel out ofcontrol.
Want to get my life undercontrol and fear.
It doesn't allow myself to dothat.
So I have to do a mindsetswitch.
There's been a deep learningexperience for me.
That fear is actuallyinformation that connects the
(34:07):
world with human vulnerability.
And the effect?
If I can actually allow it tocome into my heart, and to
actually allow it to stay therefor a second, and take ownership
of my own dang fear.
Do you know what the effectcould be?
I could have more love in myaction.
Would that be nice?
I'm sure some people will reallyappreciate that.
(34:27):
More love in my action.
Now I know that the big caveatin here that we're not called to
be working out of fear, butallow fear to deepen the pursuit
of our discovery of ourself.
What does it say about me?
What do I need to be awakened inmy own heart?
What about the other peoplearound me?
I need to sit with them, or theworld, even God.
(34:49):
So, this is still reallyunfolding for me in a powerful
way.
I don't even know where I'mgoing with this.
So this is what I've learned sofar, and I hope it's been
helpful for you.
The idea that life iscomplicated.
It's okay.
And we can still respond in asimple way that imperfection is
the gold standard and not to tryto be the ideal.
To live by the Pareto Principle.
That systems really do save, andwe need to build a system around
(35:12):
us to keep us going and toremain connected to the people
around us And to be able to relyon the systems above us, to live
a fulfilling life.
And that we're constantly in themidst of the system of life,
where we're battling efficiencyand effectiveness.
And it's hard to build thesystems around us, whether an
everything's a system dating thesystem, marriages, the system.
(35:33):
I'm not trying to make itinhuman.
It's just part of it.
Like you have rituals, you go ondates.
All these things.
And the constant fight is I wantto be effective over efficient
and efficient and effective.
And when, when do I make thoseassessments?
And out of all that, living thecontext of gift, rather than
grasp and try to do everything Ican to extend myself just enough
by which I'm actually givingmore than I'm getting.
(35:56):
And to really realize that, man,self-fulfilling prophecies are
real.
And I've got to be careful bywhich what I think and how we
behave to create worst problemsfor myself, for my family and
the world around me.
And then that change is an actof maturity, not spinelessness.
(36:17):
And finally, speaking ofspinelessness, that fear is not
to be feared.
Fear as an opportunity to bevulnerable and respond with love
in my action.
The seven things I've learnedthis past year, it's still
unfolding.
Conclusion.
The growth of desire that I wantfor myself is to embrace the
complexity of life with aninsatiable love, for curiosity,
while living the most simplelife possible for myself and for
(36:39):
my family.
My action for you that I wantfor you.
You right here this week is tounpack the complexity of one
thing in your life withoutfeeling overwhelmed alone, the
complexity to sit with youwithout responding with
complexity in your own life, butwith respond with simplicity.
Bite down on the activity ofdiscovery, and not on opinion or
(37:00):
judgment.
Take one thing, take thatcomplexity, love it.
And sit with it in empathy.
Have a wonderful week and I'llsee you next week.
Take care.
Bye-bye you for listening tothis episode of living the real.
If you want to check out moreinformation, go to living the
real.com and sign up for mynewsletter.
If you want to support thispodcast, you do that at
(37:20):
patrion.com/ltr as well asone-time payments at Venmo and
PayPal in the show notes.
See you all next episode.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
My life has changed dramatically over the
past year.
And I'm guessing I'm not theonly person who feels this way
since March of 2020, we enteredinto this pandemic.
And none of us knew what we wereexpecting to get ourselves into.
It was so unknown.
I think we had an intuition thatsomehow on some level, this was
going to change us.
This was going to cause clearlyfrustration, but I didn't know
(00:23):
how much it would change mepersonally.
This episode of the podcast isjust talking about the seven.
Things I have learned so far andit's still unfolding.
I don't even know where theseare going to land eventually,
but these seven powerfulrealities by which I have
learned invaluable lessons overthe course of this past year.
Clearly my life has changed inpractical ways, how I received
(00:44):
packages in the mail orgroceries, and then cleaning
them off, seeing people and notseeing people masking around,
social distancing.
All these different thingschanged me in a practical way,
but then it began to permeateand penetrate my mind and how I
see things.
And then as things unfolded andthings became political and the
black lives matters, all thisstuff happened and it began to
(01:07):
really enforce a differentoutlook in my own mind.
Now some things didn't changedramatically, but it deepened my
awareness of what it means forme.
To live the most real lifepossible generally.
And then in the context of apandemic, it made it all the
more, visceral and real.
And I want to share the seventhings I've learned this far,
(01:29):
and I'm sure it's going tochange and mold as I continue.
So once again, I'm Matt.
Bottger welcome to living thereal, I hope this week.
This week is the most real lifepossible yet for you let's get
going.
(01:49):
Are you living the most reallife possible?
I asked myself this question allthe time.
Most of the time, the answer isI just don't know, but sometimes
the answer is definitely not.
This is why I have this podcast.
I'm Matt Bucher, and welcome tothe show.
Two small things.
If you get a chance, pleaseleave a review like on Apple
podcasts and also check out mywebsite, live in the real.com
(02:13):
where I offer lots of resourcesand how to live the most real
life possible.
Now on with the show.
Okay.
So let's get to it.
My seven things that I havelearned so far that I think are
really important.
So I want you to listen upclosely.
Now I know in some of thesepodcasts, I go deep, but this is
how I think this is how I feel.
This is all about me trying tofigure out how.
(02:35):
To live the most real, authenticlife possible.
And it requires some deep divesometimes.
So listen up, listenintentionally, Hey, it's a
podcast.
This is where you can pause it,reflect, listen to it again.
But I know without a doubt thatby listening to this in a
complete episode, this is goingto impact you.
This is going to have adifference in your own life and
(02:55):
it's going to make this weekslightly more real So I want to
start with my lesson.
Number one.
Now these are actually in theright order.
These aren't random, these buildon one another, and I want you,
and I hope that you see this.
And I really, really more thananything, hope that you get some
good stuff from this, but whatyou can carry forward today and
tomorrow.
Now the number one lesson, ormaybe not the number one, but
(03:18):
lesson number one.
That I've learned is that lifeis complicated.
Life is complicated and here'sthe big thing.
It's okay.
It's totally okay that it'scomplicated.
Now, this was a big revelationto me in a particular sense.
The first is a realization thatlife is not linear.
(03:39):
Now.
I don't think that's too much ofa surprise to maybe listeners
that life is not linear.
That there's things all overcoming at us from different
directions and making claim toour lives.
And there's just not a linearanswer to the complications of
life.
Now, this was a problem my past,this is why this is big for me.
And it's something that Ihaven't really figured out yet
(04:01):
in the sense of, I haven'tallowed it to really impact my
life that tremendously.
Because before this awareness,so to speak, or at least the
deepening of the awareness, Itried to strip down my life to
make it easier.
Matt (04:14):
You what happened?
There was an enormous amount ofcollateral damage and stripping
my life down to make it easierbecause what happened was it
came at the expense ofrelationships.
I would oversimplifyrelationships and make them
easy.
And I would have to in somesense mold them to fit my own
framework.
Goes back to last week'sepisode, going from the inside
(04:35):
out rather than the outside in,if you have listened to it and
listened to it, it's important.
And what happened?
I ended up treatingrelationships badly.
People are hurt.
People are offended.
People felt judged because Istripped them down to fit into a
particular kind of mold to makeit simpler.
Now.
The goal is still to make simpledecisions in my life.
(04:57):
I'm not trying to look at theoutside world and say, it's
complicated.
So then my life needs to becomplicated.
That's not it at all.
It's rather (05:05):
it's the realization that life is
complicated, but my life doesn'thave to be complicated in the
response to that.
So I can still make simpledecisions without having to
strip reality down.
That's the goal.
This is the biggest, I think,gift that I've received in this
particular lesson.
Is that there, there is not acontradiction and looking at a
(05:27):
life of someone else orsomething, and yet still
maintain your own simplicity inyour own life.
You don't have to stripsomething down to make it fit
and make it easier.
You can maintain and hold itscomplexity like a human being
and yet still respond to it witha simple gesture that I'm still
trying to work out to this veryday, but I know this to be true,
(05:49):
and I'm trying to caution myselfand trying to strip people and
things down too quickly.
So I can quickly make adecision.
We're gonna talk more about thisin a second.
That was a big revelation to me.
So when I talk about.
The complications of life.
I'm not necessarily talkingabout life being extra
difficult, but rather that lifecircumstances are multithreaded.
(06:13):
Again, it's idea that life isjust not linear that it's
complicated and they have manythreads involved.
The pandemic really awoken me tothis reality.
Take this, for example, this isjust came to the top of my head
and five minutes, just riffingthrough the different threads of
the pandemic that make itcomplicated.
Thread number one, it's anunknown virus, it spreads
quickly, it kills many asexponential growth.
Thread two (06:36):
the safety of people we serve.
But the safety in many differentforms: psychological safety, the
physical safety, the economicsafety.
Thread three (06:46):
just time.
We don't know about the virus,you to make an urgent decision.
It's complicated.
So you need to make decisionsquickly.
Thread a number four (06:53):
the financial and other resources
available to actually helpaddress the pandemic.
What kind of resources do wehave?
Do we have enough?
Thread five (07:01):
the historical precedent of a pandemic, looking
at the past at other pandemicsto see what worked and what
didn't, and at least tryingthose to begin with, not knowing
whether the work or not, but weneed to start somewhere right or
wrong Thread six (07:13):
changing information and misinformation,
as things begin to evolve andbecome more of a pandemic, we
learned more about the virus.
And then by learning more, wehave to change.
And of course information waschanged, but then sometimes that
turned to misinformation.
That became an element ofsuspicion.
Thread seven (07:31):
the healthcare system.
What was needed to keep thehealth care system afloat during
times of surges, Thread numbereight: lack of preparedness.
Knowing that we, as a country,weren't quite prepared for this
pandemic.
And so we needed to buy timegoing back to time to, to get
things ready, to be able toaddress...
(07:53):
well, the issues, the caseswell.
Better diagnostic tools, bettermedical resources, more medical
resources.
Trying to find better treatmentsto try to buy some time doing
extraordinary measures to buytime so that we could better
address it.
And maybe thread nine (08:09):
clinical versus observational.
It is one thing to do clinicaldata to understand what the
virus is doing.
And then there's observationaldata of what the actual virus is
doing.
And sometimes those can be atodds to each other.
And how do you understand theobservational data can be
misleading.
Take flu as a great example.
People start to think that, Ohmy gosh, COVID really isn't
(08:31):
spreading as much as we thoughtpeople aren't dying nearly as
much.
So why are we doing lockdowns?
That's a complicated question.
And then what helped make senseof it for me was the flu.
Because the flu came this winterand it was non-existent.
Why?
Because it was justcoincidental.
No, because people were takingmeasures for COVID that had an
(08:52):
enormous amount of impact on theflu.
So that was a good piece ofevidence to suggest.
Wow.
Could you imagine if we didn'tdo these things where we would
be at with COVID.
If normally we'd have 50,000cases of the flu and we have 18
at this point in time, December,January, February, because of
what we've done.
(09:12):
Could you imagine what theimpact would have been?
If we didn't do anything withCOVID, how bigger the numbers
would be.
So you see all these differentthreads happening, right?
This is not an episode about thepandemic necessarily, but it
shows you how life is nonlinear.
There's multiple threadsinvolved here.
And then on the flip side ofthings, you have the idea of the
linear approach.
(09:33):
That COVID is not real COVID isa plot for one world rule,
pushing communism or socialism.
And these theories are groundedin other theories, which are
based on other theories, butnothing that's actually real or
substantial.
Let's talk about relationshipsnow, using this as an analog.
How me right.
Has a tendency to shape thingsin such a way to make it simple.
(09:54):
That he is just being a"D" or a"B".
I'm not going to say the word,right?
Somebody who's just being bad.
You can't stand it.
You're judging them, she's justa terrible person, but what's
behind that.
That's like the conspiracytheories.
But being able to uphold thecomplications of someone's life.
Let's take that same example ofthe threads and unpack that just
briefly in light of arelationship.
Thread number one (10:16):
unknown circumstances of their life,
their history, their present,their perceived future.
Do you know about it?
Do you know what the, but theirpast is like?
What got them to this point?
Why they're acting that way.
Tread two (10:27):
the safety of the person we are engaging.
Their psychological safety,their physical safety, their
economic safety, their emotionalsafety.
Do you know where they're at?
Do they feel threatened in anyone of those environments that
might be contributing to howthey're behaving with you?
Thread three (10:42):
the time.
Moving from one thing to thenext you're so busy, you have no
time to breathe and that canmake you a short tempered
person.
Because they have so manyobligations to stay alive for
themselves or their family.
Did you consider that Threadfour: financial and other
resources.
Limited resources for them tomake them feel free?
They don't feel free becausethey have such limited
(11:03):
resources.
They feel the stress.
So it's hard for them to bepresent to the people around
them.
Thread five (11:08):
the historical precedent.
How were they raised?
How were they taught to behavethis way.
They were raised up with itneeds to be corrected.
Absolutely.
But they're just not completelyutterly to blame here.
It's complicated.So sitting withwith them is maybe a really
advantageous thing and not justjudging them so quickly.
Thread six (11:31):
changing information.
Life has so many changingvariables with no anchor and it
can be overwhelming.
If they're constantly having achanging reality with no anchor,
no substantial reality in theirlife to be grounded in, that
makes somebody reallyvulnerable.
It can make them reactive.
And over-reactive because theyfeel threatened about
everything.
Cause there's no a refuge forthem.
(11:52):
There's no safety in their life.
Thread seven (11:55):
lack of preparedness.
Maybe they don't have enoughprotection in their life to
engage life proactively.
And so they have this kind oflens by which they look at the
world reactively.
And it's not just because that'swhat they want.
It's because it's, the life hasbeen dealt to them in some
circumstance And thread nine: what do you see versus what is (12:11):
undefined
really going on?
What are you seeing is a symptomof a deeper reality?
In reality, as a cry for help,it's a cry for a vulnerability,
feeling out of control, feelinglonely, feeling afraid.
And instead of going around andgoing how bad they are and how
to judge them.
Gosh, realizing that life iscomplicated.
(12:34):
It doesn't mean that we respondequally with a complicated
response that makes thingsworse.
We can respond with a genuine,simple answer, like empathy,
sitting with someone, a hug, anembrace, just feelings of
Goodwill towards that person cango a long way.
So this has been reallyimportant for me and still
(12:54):
shaping me in ways that I have along way to go.
The conclusion on this one (12:58):
we will fill the gap between
experience and expectation withGoodwill.
And lean into discovery overthat of determination: judging
them.
They're just an idiot.
But discovery and thecomplication, the problem
without making your own lifecomplicated.
So, while life is trulycomplicated, which is a huge
realization to me, our livesdon't have to be complicated.
(13:21):
It's grounded in two bigprinciples: Goodwill towards the
person.
Or at least filling that gap ofthe experienced expectation.
I expected this as someoneexperienced this and that sucks.
And then discovery.
Understanding the complexity oftheir life, then responding with
a simple act of charity andlove, understanding.
(13:42):
Because you don't have all theanswers.
You really don't know what'sgoing on.
So that's number one, that lifeis complicated.
It's okay.
That it's complicated and thatwe don't force ourselves to
strip it down, thus strippingour relationships down because
that's not the way by which wecan inter life in a simple way.
The second one I learned thesecond lesson, which was
(14:03):
powerful for me is thatimperfection is the gold
standard.
Imperfection is the goldstandard and not perfection.
Now, where does this come from?
It's been the whole mask storyin the COVID pandemic.
Whether masks work or not work.
And what do we mean by work?
(14:23):
Cause some people had theunderstanding that no, clearly
masks don't prevent COVID ahundred percent times they don't
work.
And that was a big dismissal.
But in fact, they do work now.
Do they work 100% of the time.
No, but they are effective indiminishing the transmission of
the virus.
Imperfection is the goldstandard here.
(14:43):
That helps tremendously.
And why this is the next lessonthat I've learned is because in
the first lesson it'scomplicated.
It's okay.
The second lesson is theresponse to that complication.
And that our response is not aperfected response.
That just creates this insanitycycle, right?
We need an imperfect andcharitable and loving response
(15:05):
to the complexity of life.
You've heard me say this before,but the Pareto Principal is so
powerful here.
That 20% of our efforts provide80% of our rewards and value.
This has been proven over andover in so many different
circumstances.
And this just shows you thepursuit of imperfection is the
highest goal here.
Life's complexity is embracedwithout making our life
(15:29):
complicated by the ParetoPrinciple.
Because for me, the ideal, theideal that, which is not like a
imperfect, but the perfectedthing you're trying to achieve
that ideal sweeps, our legs outfrom unrested makes us collapse
a perfect example.
This is back in March in 2000,everyone was going crazy with
the pandemic.
What do we do?
It's unknown.
Is it on packages?
(15:49):
Are we going to get it by juststanding on our front porch with
nobody around?
And we're afraid.
In our home in like many otherhomes were overreacting.
Doing everything we can toprotect ourselves words, we were
aiming for the ideal.
Not one little virus will enterinto our home.
And what happened?
By us pursuing the ideal, wewent a week or maybe even two
(16:11):
weeks without refilling our handsoap pumps around all the
bathrooms.
And there were many bathrooms,at least two of the three that
didn't have soap in them.
That is a Perato Principle.
Basic things is to wash yourhands, but we were so succumbed
by all these other variables ofwashing off our vegetables and
packages and spraying our doorknobs and that we just were so
(16:32):
exhausted, we never got aroundto refilling the hand soap.
And it just took our legs outfrom under us.
And that's what life is likewhen we try to pursue the ideal.
It just makes things all themore difficult and we get
nowhere.
So lesson number three, andagain, they're all connected.
Systems really do save.
(16:53):
Systems save.
We saw this.
Right away in the pandemic, thatthe lack of good systems in the
US at least particularly led toa deeper crisis in the pandemic.
Not knowing how to handle it asa nation, but only on an
individual level.
This breakdown of systems madethe virus spread much more
(17:15):
quickly.
And this breakdown of systems ispartially due because of the
American sense of self-reliance.
Self-reliance,self-determination, is a
fundamental right, but it's notthe only right.
We just allow everyone to beresponsible themselves.
That's great when things aregoing well, but when there's a
pandemic or even a nationalcrisis, and it's calling for
(17:38):
national efforts to get rid ofit, to help it, to bring aid,
then we don't have the resourceavailable because we can't do
much on individual basis.
It requires a community.
In the midst of this learninglesson, the systems really do
save.
I've learned that we areconnected, whether we like it or
not.
And the pandemic has made thatutterly known.
(18:02):
Whether you want to be connectedor not, we are connected.
And no matter what you do, theimpact of other people's
behaviors is going to impactyou.
There's no way we can get aroundthis.
This requires us to let go ofsome of the individual rights
for the sake of the common good.
And we need to develop thesystems in place to be able to
(18:23):
take care of those around us.
I've been really into this ideaof lean principles.
Of trying to live the mostsimple life.
And not to store up too manythings, but just respond into
the moment of the circumstancesbefore you not try to create so
many scenarios that which maynot ever happen and try to plan
for them because it is wastedenergy.
(18:44):
To plan for that which is infront of you and maybe a little
bit of in front of you, butthat's about it.
To try to stay way away fromwasting too much energy and
things that just aren't going tohappen.
Well, this pandemic just totallyflipped that on its head of how
it works.
And really the only way we canactually live that way.
I think that's a great way tolive, to live the kind of
simplicity, not trying to thinkabout all the other things could
(19:05):
potentially happen in your lifeand plan for them.
You'll find yourself planningyour entire life without living
it, the only way that can reallywork is if you have something
above you, some entity above youthat can provide for those
casualties that come every oncein a while, that can't be fixed
by that kind of way of life.
I'm thinking of example, of justa kid or a child.
My boys (19:23):
six, five and three.
And how they had the freedom tojust live life spontaneously and
hurt themselves and forget abouttheir lunch.
And then also they're starving.
Because they have parents whoare thinking about that, and
helping them get them theirlunch and changing their clothes
and giving them their baths, andhelping them clean up.
(19:44):
They're able to have that kindof freedom because I'm there.
If they didn't have us, theywouldn't be to live that way.
They wouldn't live long.
Like that way.
Similarly, When times get tough,we can look to the government
that's meant to help us in thoserare moments to survive and to
be able to adjust.
And get through these difficulttimes.
The next one is (20:04):
we're constantly battling the fight
between effective and efficient.
I think this is related really,really, really related to the
above.
If I saw this in many localgovernment officials trying to
deal with COVID.
And what's effective and what'sefficient.
So speaking of systems comesright off the heels of this.
(20:27):
I've learned there is a greaterdistinction between efficiency
over effectiveness.
So what is efficiency?
Efficiency is really aboutconstraints.
Dealing with time, money,resource constraints.
It's a broad sweeping, often acourse of action, to be
efficient and can seem unjustlydiscriminatory at times.
(20:47):
Because you're just beingefficient.
You're trying to get somethinggoing something quickly because
of constraints.
And yeah, it may not be perfect,but it is efficient.
It gets the job done quickly.
And then there's effective.
This is oftentimes we do whenthere's maybe less constraints
involved, it's a more narrowsurgical option.
(21:09):
It's more targeted.
And I saw this balance betweenefficiency and effectiveness
throughout the pandemic, allover the place.
And people pointing thatgovernment officials and other
people as if they're beingdiscriminatory.
And that could have been thecase, or it could have been,
this is just humanity wrestlingwith that hard distinction
between being efficient andeffective.
(21:31):
I remember back in myundergraduate days, I took this
class in philosophy and theywere talking about how the God
can't exist.
Because you look at the world,it's just not efficient.
It's so inefficient.
It's almost unintelligible.
Now.
There's a lots of things I couldgo against with this, but just
taking that at face value.
I still had an answer.
Now my, by the way, myupbringing, my past is computer
(21:52):
science.
So I, at the time, particularlyI was in undergraduate school
getting my degree in computerscience.
So computers were at theforefront of my mind.
And I remember thinking look atcomputers, for example, now at
least back then they, things aredifferent.
And how is it back in thenineties, where there was a
spinning hard drive.
You don't, you barely see thatanymore.
There were slow.
And there's this thing calledRam, which still exists today,
(22:13):
which is this fast memory.
It's super fast.
And I remember thinking if youlooked at a computer, you say
the same thing.
It's Oh my gosh, look at this.
No person, no beam could createthis on their own.
Look at all this information.
All the most importantinformation about a computer is
stored on the slowest piece ofhardware, the spinning a hard
drive that makes no sense.
(22:33):
People know that we're only,strong as our weakest link.
And if you put all of the mostimportant information on the
weakest part of the computer,then you slow everything down.
This is stupid.
Who would have made this?
This is clearly just evolution,a computer.
Now if we realized no, somebodyreally made it and yes, it's
really is inefficient, butthere's a reason why.
(22:53):
Because Ram at that time andstill today was really
expensive.
And if you really filled thecomputer with all the Ram to
store all of your information,super fast Zippy it would cost
like$20,000.
Nobody can afford that.
So you made it economicallyefficient for them.
By making some inefficiencies inthe computer.
(23:16):
And so we say that about this aswell with God and the creation,
all that kind of stuff.
And the same thing here, dealingwith efficiencies,
inefficiencies, andeffectiveness in working that
balance.
And it's an important thing tobattle.
And my conclusion here becareful not to become suspicious
of someone, something when itvery well likely could be a
(23:37):
choice to prefer efficiency,over effectiveness.
And it's hard to know when to dowhich.
We need to know the why.
Look for the anomalies and theprinciples being governed to
know whether it's beingconsistent with their principles
or inconsistent.
And that helped me see betterabout when people were being
maybe shady or when people werejust trying to do their best and
(23:59):
maybe they screwed up, butthey're doing their best.
We need to go back to filling inthe gap between experience and
expectation with Goodwill.
Everyone is doing their bestwith the unknown realities,
whether it's COVID or anythingin their life.
And here's the big take home onthis.
In the end, we should prefereffectiveness over that of
efficiency when it comes topeople.
(24:22):
We should be efficient withthings and effective with people
in general.
And sometimes it's hard tomaintain that distinction.
Now somebody might fight thatand say, Ooh, effectiveness,
even with people is not verygood, because effectiveness is
all about trying to achieve someend, some proper result, which
kind of sounds like you're usingsomeone now.
What's the result I want to getwith the human being?
(24:43):
And this goes back to myprevious episode of living the
principle of the gift.
The biggest possible effect.
The biggest possible result Ican give to someone, right?
If I'm truly being effective ina relationship with someone in
my mind, is that when they arewith me, they feel more
themselves and not less thanthemselves.
And man, I suck at this in somany ways and really hard ways
(25:06):
and the most vulnerable where Ishould be exactly the opposite.
The most important relations mylife is where I fail at this.
But this is the ideal.
This is the effect I want togive.
I want to provide.
I want to be effective withpeople and efficient with
things.
Boy, I do know when I try to beefficient with people that's
really, really bad.
So we are constantly battlingthe fight between effective and
(25:29):
efficient and we need to be okaywith that.
Next one is the whole idea ofgift at verse grasp is real.
It is really, really real.
And I see this and I saw thispreeminently at the very
beginning of the pandemic whenpeople are going crazy grasping
at toilet paper, when there wasnone left for anyone.
And that's the paradigm which welive in.
(25:50):
The shift from grasp to gift.
There's a great book called theRise of Christianity.
This person who wrote this isnot a Christian, he's not a
believer.
He's not, he doesn't even havefaith.
We just studied on asocialogical level and he saw it
because he was wondering, he'sasking the question.
How on earth did christianitydidn't become such a dominant
religion in the first threecenturies with 12 fishermen,
starting it out who wereilliterate?
(26:13):
He realized one of the biggestpersuasive elements of
Christianity in the first threecenturies was that their ability
to love utter strangers,radically.
And now he gave a number ofexamples of when plagues, which
has somewhat aligned with whatwe're talking about.
When there was plagues and townsand how the talent would run out
of the town to escape theplague, even leaving their
friends and their family behindwho had the plague to fend for
(26:35):
themselves so they could escapeit and hopefully remain healthy.
And as they were leaving thetown, you would see these
Christians.
Walking into the town, like, whyare you doing this?
And then, cause they heard thatthere was a plague and they're
going in to help those.
And they were just mesmerizedand shocked by.
They don't even know thesepeople and they're going into a
town of strangers, into aplague, risking their lives to
(26:57):
help someone they don't evenknow.
And this happened over and overand over and it shaped the
culture and it made them lend anear towards the credibility of
Christianity.
That is the idea of gift right?
Going in and often yourselves asa gift together.
Whereas this idea of trying toget as much toilet paper is a
different kind of paradigm.
This is hoarding grasping.
(27:19):
It's my rights.
It's American individualismproceeding that of the good of
the other before me.
Now I saw the idea of giftinggoing on.
I saw Facebook posts asking andsaying, Hey, go to your
restaurant.
I know you can't get it, but buya bunch of gift cards.
So that when it is over, you canuse those gift cards, help
support them in creative ways.
That's gifting.
(27:39):
Even staying home is a gift.
Not going out and risking,contaminating other people and
transmitting the virus.
It was a weird concept of gift,but it was.
Wearing a mask is a gift.
It's a sacrificial gift.
It's small compared to what wejust talked about the first few
centuries, but it's a smallsacrifice.
It's a gift.
Nobody wants to do that.
(28:01):
It's actually saying, okay, Ihave desires of my own heart,
which is real, totally real, butI'm gonna put the good to the
other person before that, thedesires of my heart.
I'm not going to negate thedesires of heart, but I'm always
going to keep it checked to thegood of the person before me is
always a little bit higher.
So I want that it's a goodpractice to be in.
Okay, Self fulfilling propheciesinfiltrate our lives more than
(28:24):
we'd like to think that thisgoes right off the heels of the
last one.
The idea from gift from graspthe idea of the example of the
hoarding and March and April,there was a fear, a real fear
that there would be no food norsupplies.
And it was the fear itself thatcaused it.
And that awakened me to the deepsense of man self-fulfilling
prophecies are a lot more of areality than I would like to
(28:47):
think it is.
It'd be nice to blame otherpeople, but I'm wondering if
more so than I've ever thoughtbefore, that is our mindset
disposition that creates theserealities in my own mind, in my
life and your life as well.
Now, we create as much as wediscover.
This is absolutely true.
(29:07):
We create a solution to theworld's problems, through
discovery.
Or, we create more problems forthe world problems through
determination.
And we create these problems outof nowhere because of the way we
approach life and ourselves.
How we think is what oftentimeswhat we become and what we
(29:28):
provide to the world around us.
Now clearly there's anundeniable, like manifestation
idea behind all this.
But I want to put that in aboundary because I'm cautious
about this.
So yes, we do manifest stuff andI'm cautious on how much we do.
But I do know that the way wethink contributes greatly on how
we behave and how we act.
Next lesson (29:50):
Change and even retraction does not mean lack of
competence.
When we change our own mind, wegrow.
It doesn't mean lack ofcompetence, all this all over.
Now, why is this important forme.
Because I have a tendency not towant to change.
The best example of this is whenI first got my brand new Nissan
(30:12):
Altima, 2008.
So excited about it.
I only had it for a year and itwas coming back home from
Nebraska, with my sister and herhusband and their child, my
nephew.
And I had my bike on top of therack And I forgot about it
because we've been driving foreight hours from Nebraska to
Colorado.
And I was pulling in my car portand I ran right into the carport
(30:32):
with my bike on top of it.
And what did I do?
Did I stop?
As soon as I heard the crunch ofmy bike.
No! I literally kept pulling inthe car port.
I didn't stop.
I didn't change.
It kept on going.
And now I remain calm the wholetime, but didn't get very angry,
even though I destroyed my car,you know, somewhat.
And it was brand new.
(30:53):
But that image of me notstopping what I was doing and
not changing and not causingmore damage to my car, haunts
me.
Cause that's what I do with mylife.
I just keep going up.
I made this decision.
I'm going to keep going becauseI'm going to be in integrity
with myself and I will beintegrity with my stupidity.
And I realize I do this sooften.
(31:15):
I make my decision and I'mresolute.
I just keep on going.
I don't learn.
Again, this goes back to why Ilove Living the Real so much in
this concept discovery.
I'm not allowing the outsideworld to shape and mold me and
change and make me grow.
I get stubborn.
And I stick with it.
And that Nissan Altima drivingin the car port is allowing it
to scrape my entire car is aperfect, terrible example of my
(31:36):
inability to change on the spot.
What does this mean for us?
How do we be in the live thisidea of allowing ourselves to be
changed and molded and grow andnot be stuck in our own ways?
And in this idea that we changeis not a sign of incompetence.
It's a sign of maturity andgrowth.
When you do big things, the planbig, enormous realities.
It's harder to change them.
(31:56):
It's a kind of perennial exampleof a rocket ship going into
outer space.
And it's going so fast that youcan only make small incremental
changes because it's just somuch going on at that moment.
It's now too late to make bigchanges.
You put all your eggs in onebasket.
Versus, if you go small andslow, you can iterate very much
more quickly and change insmaller ways and faster ways.
(32:17):
So to help me to invest smallamounts of time, energy
resource, towards things, tohelp me create my own natural
feedback loop of life so I canchange and grow and not be so
stubborn.
And try not to put my eggs allin one basket and just keep on
trucking forward in spite of allthings.
Again, like last episode, it's apriority is the outside world
informing me not imposing myworld on the world.
(32:41):
So again, the conclusion thisallow life to be the feedback
loop, and commit to intervalslarge enough to make progress,
but small enough to allowchange, change in your life.
And the last thing I learnedfrom this.
This is powerful, and this is aone it's still unraveling.
I don't fully understand, andthis is has changed me the most,
and it's really scary for me.
(33:02):
And that is fear is not to befeared.
Fear is not to be feared.
Now, what am I talking abouthere?
I have had a tendency to believethat fear is a vice.
If you fear you're weak.
But I realized this is not true.
And I seen this with thepandemic.
With people using fear to judgepeople and make them the lesser.
(33:26):
Gaslighting people out of thename of fear.
I realize what is fear, butnothing, but the proper servant
of love for the imperfectsaints.
Quote that I found.
Fear is the proper servant oflove for the imperfect saints.
Fear recognizes the fragility oflife and love.
That it is fragile.
(33:46):
And this is the hardest one forme to really take in, and I
don't know where I'm going to gowith this, to be honest, but I
know it to be true.
I've been accustomed to run awayfrom fear.
Why?
Because it makes me feel out ofcontrol.
Want to get my life undercontrol and fear.
It doesn't allow myself to dothat.
So I have to do a mindsetswitch.
There's been a deep learningexperience for me.
That fear is actuallyinformation that connects the
(34:07):
world with human vulnerability.
And the effect?
If I can actually allow it tocome into my heart, and to
actually allow it to stay therefor a second, and take ownership
of my own dang fear.
Do you know what the effectcould be?
I could have more love in myaction.
Would that be nice?
I'm sure some people will reallyappreciate that.
(34:27):
More love in my action.
Now I know that the big caveatin here that we're not called to
be working out of fear, butallow fear to deepen the pursuit
of our discovery of ourself.
What does it say about me?
What do I need to be awakened inmy own heart?
What about the other peoplearound me?
I need to sit with them, or theworld, even God.
(34:49):
So, this is still reallyunfolding for me in a powerful
way.
I don't even know where I'mgoing with this.
So this is what I've learned sofar, and I hope it's been
helpful for you.
The idea that life iscomplicated.
It's okay.
And we can still respond in asimple way that imperfection is
the gold standard and not to tryto be the ideal.
To live by the Pareto Principle.
That systems really do save, andwe need to build a system around
(35:12):
us to keep us going and toremain connected to the people
around us And to be able to relyon the systems above us, to live
a fulfilling life.
And that we're constantly in themidst of the system of life,
where we're battling efficiencyand effectiveness.
And it's hard to build thesystems around us, whether an
everything's a system dating thesystem, marriages, the system.
(35:33):
I'm not trying to make itinhuman.
It's just part of it.
Like you have rituals, you go ondates.
All these things.
And the constant fight is I wantto be effective over efficient
and efficient and effective.
And when, when do I make thoseassessments?
And out of all that, living thecontext of gift, rather than
grasp and try to do everything Ican to extend myself just enough
by which I'm actually givingmore than I'm getting.
(35:56):
And to really realize that, man,self-fulfilling prophecies are
real.
And I've got to be careful bywhich what I think and how we
behave to create worst problemsfor myself, for my family and
the world around me.
And then that change is an actof maturity, not spinelessness.
(36:17):
And finally, speaking ofspinelessness, that fear is not
to be feared.
Fear as an opportunity to bevulnerable and respond with love
in my action.
The seven things I've learnedthis past year, it's still
unfolding.
Conclusion.
The growth of desire that I wantfor myself is to embrace the
complexity of life with aninsatiable love, for curiosity,
while living the most simplelife possible for myself and for
(36:39):
my family.
My action for you that I wantfor you.
You right here this week is tounpack the complexity of one
thing in your life withoutfeeling overwhelmed alone, the
complexity to sit with youwithout responding with
complexity in your own life, butwith respond with simplicity.
Bite down on the activity ofdiscovery, and not on opinion or
(37:00):
judgment.
Take one thing, take thatcomplexity, love it.
And sit with it in empathy.
Have a wonderful week and I'llsee you next week.
Take care.
Bye-bye you for listening tothis episode of living the real.
If you want to check out moreinformation, go to living the
real.com and sign up for mynewsletter.
If you want to support thispodcast, you do that at
(37:20):
patrion.com/ltr as well asone-time payments at Venmo and
PayPal in the show notes.
See you all next episode.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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