September 23, 2025 • 15 mins
In this episode, Andrew covers perhaps the 3 BIG DECISIONS that majorly impact a person’s Life.. They are:
- Your Choice of a Mate or to Live Alone (kiddos are part of this)
- Your Choice of Occupation
- Your Choice of a HOME
Reed speaks plainly about how each of these decisions and their DRAMATIC CONSEQUENCES in the quality of one's Life…and the need to be as deliberate as possible in these choices.
Chapter Markers
(00:12) Why this series exists: Intelligent Life, beyond institutions, into Nature and reality
(01:04) The premise: three big decisions that set direction, happiness, and experience
(02:03) Decision #1 — Mate or Live Alone: influence on nearly every choice; hard personal lessons
(04:48) Kids, seasons of marriage, and permission to change direction when it’s destructive
(05:48) Choosing solitude well: standards, freedom, reconciliation with self, and the divine presence.
(07:20) Decision #2 — Occupation: pick work that gives energy; apprenticeship, pain, and payoff
(08:52) Entrepreneurship vs. employment: it takes “more than 40 hours” and real responsibility
(10:02) Economics across decisions: partner effects, household strain, and boundaries
(11:50) Decision #3 — Where to Live: finding “home,” surroundings, and the neighbor effect
(14:03) Luxuriate: ordinary joys as wealth; why most luxuriating happens at home
(15:21) Gratitude for the scars; nothing wasted in Nature or in life; close and contact
Song: Twisted World - andrew reed & the liberation
Album: As a Bird of the Air… (Trilogy I Album 1)
Social Media Links
Official Website: www.AndrewReedMusic.com
Facebook: @andrewreedandtheliberation
X: @AndrewReedMusic
Instagram: @AndrewReedMusic
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Lx7DnbB5qyt7uwV8yeHwE
Youtube Channel: @andrewreedtheliberation
MVI Phone #: (828) 698-5885
Click here to view the episode transcript.
Watch out for the next message, every two weeks on Fridays @ 7:01am (EST)!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What are you willing to throw your life away on? With
Andrew Reed and The Liberation.It's a serious question, one
worth pondering. Am I living thelife I want, an intelligent
life, or something else? How canI have a better experience of
life?
These are some of the questionsexplored in this series of
(00:34):
messages without the brag andthe advertisement. Getting
beyond even human institutionsand society into the wilderness,
nature, the reality of how lifeactually operates on this
planet. These messages rangefrom intimate recordings from
the awakened forest to concerts,national conferences, and
(00:56):
broadcasts on a wide array ofphilosophical topics.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
To me, there are three major or big decisions in
one's life. I know I wish Iwould have realized how big of
decisions these were earlier inmy life because they obviously
(01:24):
dictate to some direction whereyou end up, how happy you are,
what your experience of life is.So here they are, the three big
decisions in your life, or atleast three of them. Obviously,
there could be others that Ihave not considered, but these
(01:49):
are all pretty good ones. Thefirst is, and they are in order
of priority, most important isyour choice of a mate or your
choice to live alone.
That's a major dictate. Why?Because that choice of a mate
will color almost every decisionyou make. You will spend
(02:13):
enormous amounts of your lifewith this person. And I know
from experience that wife numberone, because I do have a
numerical system to keep up withthis, was miserable.
And it was not very compatible.I didn't read the manual on
selecting a mate and all this.It had a huge impact in my life
(02:38):
in many directions. Wife numbertwo, loved this woman, this
Australian bombshell, but I hadbitten off more than I could
chew trying to live in Australiaand simultaneously live in
America, have businesses, havemusic things going on in both,
(02:59):
all those things, kids,relatives on this side, not
being able to be with them. Andjust the sheer logistics of the
situation wore me out.
I had a breakdown, and so I hadto make a choice. And Doctor.
Smith, my good doctor, and it'sgood to have a good doctor, just
sat me down and said, Andrew,you have bitten off more than
(03:20):
you can chew. You've got to makea choice. And for me, both of
these divorces were verydifficult.
Why? I was born and raisedCatholic. Good Catholics don't
do that. And finally, my momliberated me one day. She just
(03:40):
said, Andrew, you're living ahorrid life, and you've got to
do something about it.
This was with wife number one.She had passed before my second
marriage. But she said, You'veyou've got to get out of this.
You've got to end this. Thisisn't good for you.
It's not good for the kids. Iknow you're trying to do your
(04:03):
best, but this is no good. Andit's only then really when I had
an illumination or could summonthe courage to make that big
move in my life. And then laterI there is another person, just
(04:23):
the love of my life, and forwhatever reason, it did not work
out ultimately, even though thefeelings never changed. But this
person that you live with, it'sgonna impact you here.
It's obviously gonna impact youwhen it comes to kids. And those
kids will take over your life.Everything you do will be
(04:48):
surrounded, at least for mostparents, around the activities
of the kids. And there we haveit, you know, the kids are kind
of the glue. And there's a lotof people that are in marriages
that are great and that is to becommended.
And with all marriages, ofcourse, there are rough spots,
(05:10):
there are times you need totough through, there's times
when you don't particularly likeeach other very much, but you
come to some resolution. Butthen there's ones that are just
not good, really for anybody.And we have to have the
intelligence. So sometimes weneed somebody to say, Hey, it's
okay to go in a new direction.And I know that's what it took
(05:33):
for me.
Because this first choice, thischoice of a mate, or the choice
to live alone, I live alone now.I've kind of been through, you
know, a lot of relationships.And all of these have
contributed in some way, eventhe negative ones, to the
richness of my life. But I likebeing alone. I like living to my
(05:57):
own standards.
I like making my own decisions.And I'm one of those that
doesn't suffer from beinglonely. I know loneliness is a
big deal with a lot of people.But I suspect the more
reconciled a person becomes withthemselves, and of course a lot
(06:19):
of this happens in thewilderness for me, in my
isolation, The more that weappreciate life, the more that
we realize that we're neveralone, that we're always
surrounded by the presence ofdivinity and God and life. And
there's so many interestingthings to do that I just like my
(06:41):
own company to a large extent.
Now with that said, I am a humanbeing, so I am a social
organism. So I like being aroundpeople. And I realize that part
of my job in life is to behelpful. I mean, I am dedicated
to it like a ministry.Healthfulness, incredible
(07:02):
customer service, taking care ofpeople, sharing.
To me, I get great satisfactionfrom that. And that's just where
I want to go. So with this said,big choice, or big decision
number one, your choice of amate or your choice to live
alone. The second big decisioncomes from our choice of
(07:29):
occupation. That is what we'regoing to do for work, for money,
for value, for our psychic senseof meaning.
Because you're going to spend athird or more of your life doing
this activity. And, of course, alot of times we have many
professions and occupations inour life and there's nothing
(07:51):
wrong with that. But I will saythis, pick something that gives
you energy, something you wantto do. Because if you're living
a life doing work that you don'tparticularly like, you probably
have somewhat of a failed life.There are things, obviously, we
(08:14):
all don't like to do in any job,but the predominant feeling that
we must get from that occupationshould be that of joy, that it's
worthwhile, that it's worthdoing.
And even though there's astruggle in all occupations, you
have to gain the skill, you haveto serve your apprenticeship,
(08:37):
you have to acquire theknowledge, this is the
discipline, this is the painaspect of happiness. But you
make that sacrifice, and reallyit's not a sacrifice because
you'll get it back compoundedmulti times. But you put in your
duty, your obligation, you paythe price for that occupation
(09:00):
and it adds again another layerof richness, but you're going to
spend at least a third or moreof your life doing this
activity. If you're building abusiness, it's gonna take a lot
more than that. Again, I do notknow how to be successful in a
forty hour week.
In music or in any of ourconsulting businesses, or
(09:25):
anything like that, I just knowthat it takes a tremendous
amount of work to actually builda business. There's another
thing to be an employee. Whenyou're building that business,
again in hard times, you're theone making the payroll. We're
suffering through all of theheartaches that come with
(09:47):
managing volumes of people.Every personality in a company
has to be managed on some level.
But this choice determines to agreat extent how much money
you're going to have. And moneyis a big part of the equation.
Your choice of a mate, goingback to big decision number one,
(10:10):
makes a big difference too inyour economics. I mean, wife
number one would spend everypenny I ever made, almost
immediately. And I found this inmultiple partner situations
where, you know, and after awhile it's like, God, you know,
(10:31):
can't we all pitch into the pot?
Does Andrew always have to makethe money? So the economic
thing, I'll say almost crossesall three of these decisions to
some extent. Obviously, if youhave a mate or partner that
contributes substantially, evenif it's supporting you, as
(10:54):
you're putting in the hard time,the hard hours, rather than
lording over people and makingthe person miserable that's
trying to do the right thing.When I was knocking out my CPA
and some of my differentdegrees, well, number one would
just make it miserable, make italmost impossible for me to
(11:14):
study on purpose. So a decisionhas to be made at some point
when you've had enough.
So your choice of mate or yourchoice to live alone, big
decision number one. Number two,your choice of occupation or
profession, number two. And thethird big decision is the choice
(11:37):
of where you're going to live.Why? Because you're going to
spend so much time in thisdwelling.
And I will say this, it wasn'tuntil I found the cabin, this
broken down place, that I had aplace I could really call my
home. Something that felt likehome. And all the other houses
(11:59):
and stuff, I felt like a renteror felt like it was a temporary
situation. But this was thefirst place, even with all the
broken windows, 14 brokenwindows, water in the basement,
graffiti, again, you could mowand discover a car. And myself
(12:20):
and Daphne, we fixed it up byourselves, it's so beautiful
now.
The whole estate is beautifulwith all the houses and
surrounding properties, but it'staken work. But the choice of
where you live, where you'regoing to spend most of your
time, your leisure timeespecially, which is so
(12:40):
valuable, is a big deal. Andit's not only the type of home
you have, it's also thesurroundings, it's about the
neighbors because you can havesome neighbors that can make you
pretty miserable too. Like onetime, again, I was living in
Australia and a piece ofproperty got away from me and
(13:02):
some really low consciousnesspeople moved in. I mean, are
people that would think nothingof littering.
I believe they had fightingcocks even on the property
because it drove some of myother neighbors mad. They could
have had a meth lab. But we hadto suffer with that for some
years until I had theopportunity to buy them out, in
(13:25):
which I promptly did. And ofcourse, as I always do, I buy
the property and I probablydon't do much with it. My job is
more protection.
But your neighbors influenceyour happiness to a great
extent. So where you're going tolive. And this really has to do
with, again, this word I lovecalled to luxuriate, which is
(13:49):
really an aspect of wealth. Toluxuriate just means to this
word almost explains itselfbecause it just means to lay
back and feel the soft leatherchair, to taste your food, to
really enjoy your property, tomow the lawn and delight in it,
(14:09):
to wash the dishes, to do allthese things, these ordinary
things, aspects of life, which Iallude to so much, because that
is so much about happiness. Justbeing able to appreciate
ordinary things.
It doesn't have to be the bigspectacle things that we do in
(14:30):
our lives. It doesn't have to beabout the big achievement or
anything like that. Justlearning to luxuriate. And most
of the time you're going to dothat in your home. So your
choice of where to live is a bigaspect of your life or a big
decision.
So there we have it, the threebig decisions in your life. And
(14:56):
it's advice that I wish someonewould have gave me earlier. It
might have saved me from some ofthe heartaches and scars that I
have, but I wouldn't be theperson I am today without those.
So in that, I'm grateful for allthose. There's really nothing in
my past there that I regret.
All serves a purpose, and as Ilike to believe, there's really
(15:21):
no waste in nature, and there'sno waste in our lives. All can
come together for the good.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Thank you for listening. If you need anything
further, just go to mbi.life.
What are you willing to throw your life away on? With
Andrew Reed and The Liberation.It's a serious question, one
worth pondering. Am I living thelife I want, an intelligent
life, or something else? How canI have a better experience of
life?
These are some of the questionsexplored in this series of
(00:34):
messages without the brag andthe advertisement. Getting
beyond even human institutionsand society into the wilderness,
nature, the reality of how lifeactually operates on this
planet. These messages rangefrom intimate recordings from
the awakened forest to concerts,national conferences, and
(00:56):
broadcasts on a wide array ofphilosophical topics.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
To me, there are three major or big decisions in
one's life. I know I wish Iwould have realized how big of
decisions these were earlier inmy life because they obviously
(01:24):
dictate to some direction whereyou end up, how happy you are,
what your experience of life is.So here they are, the three big
decisions in your life, or atleast three of them. Obviously,
there could be others that Ihave not considered, but these
(01:49):
are all pretty good ones. Thefirst is, and they are in order
of priority, most important isyour choice of a mate or your
choice to live alone.
That's a major dictate. Why?Because that choice of a mate
will color almost every decisionyou make. You will spend
(02:13):
enormous amounts of your lifewith this person. And I know
from experience that wife numberone, because I do have a
numerical system to keep up withthis, was miserable.
And it was not very compatible.I didn't read the manual on
selecting a mate and all this.It had a huge impact in my life
(02:38):
in many directions. Wife numbertwo, loved this woman, this
Australian bombshell, but I hadbitten off more than I could
chew trying to live in Australiaand simultaneously live in
America, have businesses, havemusic things going on in both,
(02:59):
all those things, kids,relatives on this side, not
being able to be with them. Andjust the sheer logistics of the
situation wore me out.
I had a breakdown, and so I hadto make a choice. And Doctor.
Smith, my good doctor, and it'sgood to have a good doctor, just
sat me down and said, Andrew,you have bitten off more than
(03:20):
you can chew. You've got to makea choice. And for me, both of
these divorces were verydifficult.
Why? I was born and raisedCatholic. Good Catholics don't
do that. And finally, my momliberated me one day. She just
(03:40):
said, Andrew, you're living ahorrid life, and you've got to
do something about it.
This was with wife number one.She had passed before my second
marriage. But she said, You'veyou've got to get out of this.
You've got to end this. Thisisn't good for you.
It's not good for the kids. Iknow you're trying to do your
(04:03):
best, but this is no good. Andit's only then really when I had
an illumination or could summonthe courage to make that big
move in my life. And then laterI there is another person, just
(04:23):
the love of my life, and forwhatever reason, it did not work
out ultimately, even though thefeelings never changed. But this
person that you live with, it'sgonna impact you here.
It's obviously gonna impact youwhen it comes to kids. And those
kids will take over your life.Everything you do will be
(04:48):
surrounded, at least for mostparents, around the activities
of the kids. And there we haveit, you know, the kids are kind
of the glue. And there's a lotof people that are in marriages
that are great and that is to becommended.
And with all marriages, ofcourse, there are rough spots,
(05:10):
there are times you need totough through, there's times
when you don't particularly likeeach other very much, but you
come to some resolution. Butthen there's ones that are just
not good, really for anybody.And we have to have the
intelligence. So sometimes weneed somebody to say, Hey, it's
okay to go in a new direction.And I know that's what it took
(05:33):
for me.
Because this first choice, thischoice of a mate, or the choice
to live alone, I live alone now.I've kind of been through, you
know, a lot of relationships.And all of these have
contributed in some way, eventhe negative ones, to the
richness of my life. But I likebeing alone. I like living to my
(05:57):
own standards.
I like making my own decisions.And I'm one of those that
doesn't suffer from beinglonely. I know loneliness is a
big deal with a lot of people.But I suspect the more
reconciled a person becomes withthemselves, and of course a lot
(06:19):
of this happens in thewilderness for me, in my
isolation, The more that weappreciate life, the more that
we realize that we're neveralone, that we're always
surrounded by the presence ofdivinity and God and life. And
there's so many interestingthings to do that I just like my
(06:41):
own company to a large extent.
Now with that said, I am a humanbeing, so I am a social
organism. So I like being aroundpeople. And I realize that part
of my job in life is to behelpful. I mean, I am dedicated
to it like a ministry.Healthfulness, incredible
(07:02):
customer service, taking care ofpeople, sharing.
To me, I get great satisfactionfrom that. And that's just where
I want to go. So with this said,big choice, or big decision
number one, your choice of amate or your choice to live
alone. The second big decisioncomes from our choice of
(07:29):
occupation. That is what we'regoing to do for work, for money,
for value, for our psychic senseof meaning.
Because you're going to spend athird or more of your life doing
this activity. And, of course, alot of times we have many
professions and occupations inour life and there's nothing
(07:51):
wrong with that. But I will saythis, pick something that gives
you energy, something you wantto do. Because if you're living
a life doing work that you don'tparticularly like, you probably
have somewhat of a failed life.There are things, obviously, we
(08:14):
all don't like to do in any job,but the predominant feeling that
we must get from that occupationshould be that of joy, that it's
worthwhile, that it's worthdoing.
And even though there's astruggle in all occupations, you
have to gain the skill, you haveto serve your apprenticeship,
(08:37):
you have to acquire theknowledge, this is the
discipline, this is the painaspect of happiness. But you
make that sacrifice, and reallyit's not a sacrifice because
you'll get it back compoundedmulti times. But you put in your
duty, your obligation, you paythe price for that occupation
(09:00):
and it adds again another layerof richness, but you're going to
spend at least a third or moreof your life doing this
activity. If you're building abusiness, it's gonna take a lot
more than that. Again, I do notknow how to be successful in a
forty hour week.
In music or in any of ourconsulting businesses, or
(09:25):
anything like that, I just knowthat it takes a tremendous
amount of work to actually builda business. There's another
thing to be an employee. Whenyou're building that business,
again in hard times, you're theone making the payroll. We're
suffering through all of theheartaches that come with
(09:47):
managing volumes of people.Every personality in a company
has to be managed on some level.
But this choice determines to agreat extent how much money
you're going to have. And moneyis a big part of the equation.
Your choice of a mate, goingback to big decision number one,
(10:10):
makes a big difference too inyour economics. I mean, wife
number one would spend everypenny I ever made, almost
immediately. And I found this inmultiple partner situations
where, you know, and after awhile it's like, God, you know,
(10:31):
can't we all pitch into the pot?
Does Andrew always have to makethe money? So the economic
thing, I'll say almost crossesall three of these decisions to
some extent. Obviously, if youhave a mate or partner that
contributes substantially, evenif it's supporting you, as
(10:54):
you're putting in the hard time,the hard hours, rather than
lording over people and makingthe person miserable that's
trying to do the right thing.When I was knocking out my CPA
and some of my differentdegrees, well, number one would
just make it miserable, make italmost impossible for me to
(11:14):
study on purpose. So a decisionhas to be made at some point
when you've had enough.
So your choice of mate or yourchoice to live alone, big
decision number one. Number two,your choice of occupation or
profession, number two. And thethird big decision is the choice
(11:37):
of where you're going to live.Why? Because you're going to
spend so much time in thisdwelling.
And I will say this, it wasn'tuntil I found the cabin, this
broken down place, that I had aplace I could really call my
home. Something that felt likehome. And all the other houses
(11:59):
and stuff, I felt like a renteror felt like it was a temporary
situation. But this was thefirst place, even with all the
broken windows, 14 brokenwindows, water in the basement,
graffiti, again, you could mowand discover a car. And myself
(12:20):
and Daphne, we fixed it up byourselves, it's so beautiful
now.
The whole estate is beautifulwith all the houses and
surrounding properties, but it'staken work. But the choice of
where you live, where you'regoing to spend most of your
time, your leisure timeespecially, which is so
(12:40):
valuable, is a big deal. Andit's not only the type of home
you have, it's also thesurroundings, it's about the
neighbors because you can havesome neighbors that can make you
pretty miserable too. Like onetime, again, I was living in
Australia and a piece ofproperty got away from me and
(13:02):
some really low consciousnesspeople moved in. I mean, are
people that would think nothingof littering.
I believe they had fightingcocks even on the property
because it drove some of myother neighbors mad. They could
have had a meth lab. But we hadto suffer with that for some
years until I had theopportunity to buy them out, in
(13:25):
which I promptly did. And ofcourse, as I always do, I buy
the property and I probablydon't do much with it. My job is
more protection.
But your neighbors influenceyour happiness to a great
extent. So where you're going tolive. And this really has to do
with, again, this word I lovecalled to luxuriate, which is
(13:49):
really an aspect of wealth. Toluxuriate just means to this
word almost explains itselfbecause it just means to lay
back and feel the soft leatherchair, to taste your food, to
really enjoy your property, tomow the lawn and delight in it,
(14:09):
to wash the dishes, to do allthese things, these ordinary
things, aspects of life, which Iallude to so much, because that
is so much about happiness. Justbeing able to appreciate
ordinary things.
It doesn't have to be the bigspectacle things that we do in
(14:30):
our lives. It doesn't have to beabout the big achievement or
anything like that. Justlearning to luxuriate. And most
of the time you're going to dothat in your home. So your
choice of where to live is a bigaspect of your life or a big
decision.
So there we have it, the threebig decisions in your life. And
(14:56):
it's advice that I wish someonewould have gave me earlier. It
might have saved me from some ofthe heartaches and scars that I
have, but I wouldn't be theperson I am today without those.
So in that, I'm grateful for allthose. There's really nothing in
my past there that I regret.
All serves a purpose, and as Ilike to believe, there's really
(15:21):
no waste in nature, and there'sno waste in our lives. All can
come together for the good.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Thank you for listening. If you need anything
further, just go to mbi.life.
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