Brett Mason Show
Thirty-Eight: Power Of Faith
I'm Victoria Cash, thanks for calling the Lucky Land Hotline. If you feel like you do the same thing every day, press 1. If you're ready to have some serious fun... For the chance to redeem some serious prizes, press 2. We heard you loud and clear, so go to luckylandslots.com right now and play over a hundred social casino-style games for free. Get lucky today at luckylandslots.com. No purchase necessary, VGW Group, void reporhibited by law, 18+ terms of condition supply. Let me genuinely and sincerely thank you for joining me for another episode of The Brett Mason Show. I'm that guy, I'm glad you're here. Today we're going to be talking about the power of belief. Why I think belief is good, and in most cases, nearly all cases, kind of mandatory. But I'll talk about where I differ on, I think, conventional wisdom about belief. For the record, it's taken me a while to evolve to this point, to this level of understanding, because there was for a while that I thought belief was kind of meaningless and useless. It's like I thought it was a distraction, and as time's going on, my understanding of belief is how it relates to humans, and the human mind and the human condition has differently evolved, and may evolve again. I mean, that's the beautiful thing. Once you unlock yourself from paradigms that are set up for most of us, really, you're kind of locked into a path, a way of understanding things like this from a very early age. It's very difficult to branch out from that. Once you open yourself to, I just want to know the best, correct things, and you don't care where that search leads you, you're not presupposed that it's going to wind up in a certain place. It really does expand your ability to resolve things. Let's talk about fate. Fate, as it's generally understood in most of the world, but especially in the Western world and the Muslim world, I suppose, and the Jewish world primarily, although there's some other segments, but that by far makes up the vast majority of the world's population in just those three religions. Anytime you mention the word "faith," it's automatically assumed you're talking about faith in a creator, faith in a god. You'll just hear people all the time talking about how important their faith is. My faith is so important to me. My faith is what gets me through life. My faith is what guides me. My faith is why I have understanding. My faith is why I have peace. My faith is why I have comfort. My faith is why I seek guidance or they'll just go down a long laundry list of the benefits of faith, but when they're talking about faith, they're always talking about faith in their particular creator. For Christians, I mean, it's dual, really, it's Jesus and God. If you talk to Orthodox Jews, they'll let you know how ridiculous that is. Those two are incompatible, but nevertheless, in the strange world of the Christian faith, they are the same. Obviously Jews talking about Jehovah, Hashem, I guess, I don't know. Then obviously, Muslims talking about Prophet Muhammad and also really the same God that the Jews talk about, which is something I think most people don't have an understanding of. It's complicated, and I don't even begin to understand all the intricacies of it, but still, on a foundational, basic level, that's true. For a while, my deconstruction, I mentioned this before, my deconstruction episode, you can go back and listen to what you like. It started way back in the early '90s, and then it remained on different levels and grew as time went on. Never became a public thing. I can't imagine, like, 10 years ago, I would have never recorded this in a podcast 15 years ago, 20 years ago, I just would have never done this. I've only been free to do this once my mom passed. It would have wrecked my mom. My mom would have not slept or ate until she literally died if she knew I was an unbeliever. She would have fasted herself into an early grave and prayed herself into an early grave, trying to save my immortal soul. She just would have. She would have just been terrified, so I would have never put my mom to that. I would have never put my mom to that. For the longest time I thought faith was ridiculous, I'm like, "It's just a crutch." Faith is just a crutch for you. It's a crutch for putting understanding. It's a fake form of understanding about things you don't understand. It's a fake form of comfort about things you need comforting on. It's a fake form of hope for things you need hope for. This is just a crutch, it's just a crutch and you are inhibiting your life by having it. My thoughts on that have definitely evolved, and I would say rather recently, I don't know when this evolution started, but probably maybe in the last, I don't know, two years, we started moving towards what my thoughts on this are now. It came, here was the thing, you never know what's going to flip a switch for you. You never know what's going to flip a switch. What flipped the switch for me was, I saw something about alcoholics and onemas one day. It may have been in a movie, I don't know, it may have been reading it, it may have been something online, but part of being an alcoholics anonymous, being part of when he's 12 step programs or whatever they are, one thing you have to do is acknowledge that there is a higher power and he's in control and that you have to surrender control and I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of it, but that's basically it. You aren't doing it right if you don't follow that part. To the best of my law, you can't be an open atheist alcoholics anonymous person, because I mean you're just throwing out a big fundamental part of what it is. And so however that happened, it got me thinking on it, I can see where that would be huge for alcoholics because it removes this crazy burden that's got to be on your shoulders as an alcoholic to try to conquer and overcome and what must feel like the impossible. But once you accept and acknowledge and surrender to a higher power, suddenly you have faith that will resolve because there's something bigger than you in control of it and you just have to kind of surrender to that control and the surrendering to the control is doing the steps. But if you put it on yourself, it's an enormous amount to overcome, because especially if you're one of the worst of the worst spiraling alcoholics, it's just consumed every part of your life. Maybe you lost everything. But look, I'm not trying to distinguish between different levels of alcoholism, but for sure there's some whose lives it has ruined worse than others, although it's not good for anybody. So I don't mean to suggest that, but when you put that burden and that weight upon your soldier to it, I've got to overcome these things. I've got to do it. And how can I do it when I'm controlled by this? I mean, it has to be just overwhelming. And so, you know, as I was studying part of it, I'm like, it's kind of brilliant, right? It's kind of a brilliant thing. It allows you to set it aside and put it in a different place where, okay, there's a higher power who's got this. And I just have to kind of surrender to that and know that the higher power is going to work with me and through me and alongside me on my path and my journey. And I just simply have to have faith and I have to make good faith efforts towards this stuff and it will be okay at some point. It's an acceptance that it's going to be okay, it may not be okay now, but I just know it's going to be okay. And it's that hope, it's that acknowledgement, it's that almost certainty that it is going to be okay that will motivate you to move towards that direction. But without this thinking it's a higher power involved, you would never have that level of certainty that it's going to be okay because you would be trusting yourself to do it. You would be, well, I'm the guy that hasn't been able to overcome alcoholism for all this time. How can I have any level of certainty that this 12-step program is going to work? I have zero confidence because it's all on me and I'm the problem. And so just by shifting it over and putting it into another category of, oh, there's higher powers got this and it is going to be all right because I am surrendering to the higher power and I have faith that it's going to be all right and all I have to do is continue to move towards where I need to move towards, well, now suddenly all the pressure and the doubt, disbelief and stuff is gone and it's the belief. It is the belief. It's the faith, the belief that is the vehicle on which you ride to success. And once the day that that happened, it was so eye opening to me and suddenly the whole entire world made sense to me how important faith is and it's, look, Summer, you're going to call this blasphemy. I just ask you to forgive me. I don't mean it in a blasphemous way and if there is a God and he thinks it's blasphemous, I'm going to ask him for his forgiveness too because I just simply don't believe. And so it's not a willing thing, like I'm not willfully disbelieving and I'm not willfully trying to be contentious or blasphemous, it's just, I just don't believe, but it's not the God part of the equation that's important. It's the faith part. It's the acceptance and understanding and super high level of optimism and hope. That's the important part. It's the being able to bank on it part. And this is where people use the faith. They use the faith when times aren't going good and maybe they've lost their job. It's when times aren't going good and maybe their husband or their wife has left them. It's when times aren't going good and maybe they've lost a family member, a child, a mother, a father, a brother, a cousin, sister. It's times when things, for whatever reason, just aren't going right and you're struggling. It's times when you've contracted an illness on varying levels of severity and it's for times when you're presented with things where the future is uncertain, right? It's times when the world is in a place where it can be frightening to you. And so if you have faith that everything is going to eventually be okay, it allows you to move forward and not be hobbled, not be frozen in it, to not be for all those things to not be a stumbling block to you as you try to move forward. So, okay, I'm going to wake up today and move forward because I know it's going to work out and for believers, it's I'm just going to wake up and I'm going to move forward today because I know it's going to work out because God's got this. God's got this. God's in control. God's got a plan. I don't see the plan. I don't understand the plan. I don't understand why I lost my job and I don't understand why I just have barely enough money for food and I don't know where the electric bill is going to come from in three weeks. But I know God's got this and God's in control and so I'm going to trust in that and we're just going to wake up every day and put one foot forward in front of the other one and we know that we have a high level of confidence going to be all right because God's in control. So the only difference between that person that can be you and me is I also have a high level of faith that things are going to work out that if I wake up every day and I put one foot in front of the other one and I move forward and I continue to try to do my best that at some point, most all things will almost always resolve themselves because that's how life works. Now, you will eventually hit a point in life where it doesn't and I don't care if you're a believer in God, I don't care if you're a believer in Jesus, I don't care if you're Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew, doesn't matter, at some point in your life, you will hit a wall where it no longer works out. You will get cancer and die from it. You will be driving down the road and get smashed, t-boned and die from it. You will, your spouse will eventually die and it will be permanent. The thing that you are going through will be a thing from which there is no recovery from. But up until that thing happens, all these other things will continue to work out. Why? Because we're humans and we're resourceful and we have this instinct to survive. It's a strong instinct. It's programmed deep into our DNA and if you have faith, it's going to be okay. If you have a very high level of confidence that things are going to work out, it removes the stress and the burden layer from it and allows you to more freely move forward to move to that place you want to be and do the things you need to do every day to wake up and take the shower and to get dressed and go pound the pavement, put one foot in front of the other or to go see the doctor or to go whatever, whatever, whatever things it is that's required for you to do every day, when you have the faith, if you're a believer in a power power, when you have that level of faith, you believe that it's in his hands and he's got it and it's going to work out because of him. If you're an unbeliever like me, you have faith that it's going to work out because that's just how life works. It always works out. It just always works out. I just got to get up every day and move forward. I'm Victoria Cash and I want to invite you to a place called Lucky Land, where you can play over a hundred social casino style games for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. So what are you waiting for? The best way to discover your luck is to spin. So go to luckylandslots.com, that's luckylandslots.com, and get lucky today at Lucky Land. No purchase necessary, VGW Group, boy prohibited by law, 18 plus terms and conditions apply. I will get over the flu. I will get over this pneumonia, this broken foot will hill, this job I lost, I will find another one, this terrible backache that's been debilitating for the past eight days will eventually get better if we move forward and we use the ice packs and we, careful how we sit, careful how we stand, careful how we lay, and it will work itself out because life generally always works itself out. Now the older you get, the less things work themselves out. Why? Well, your ability to navigate through this natural world goes down with age from a cognitive standpoint, from a physical fitness standpoint, from a capability standpoint, from a health standpoint, from a motivation standpoint. So as you age, that's that level of certainty that whatever the thing is that would cause you stress is going to work it out, will decrease some, but for everything except for the worst of things, it still will generally just work itself out. So I have faith, I have faith, you know, I have faith that the sun's going to rise tomorrow, not because there's a creator, but because it's been doing it for millions of years. And I do know at some point the sun will eventually explode and it'll take all of these planets and stuff out and we'll all be just gases in the air, but I mean, I have faith it'll be a long time before that happens. And so until that happens tomorrow will be much like today, unless in some, for some reason, I just don't make it till tomorrow, which could for sure happen. I could have a stroke or a heart attack or stop breathing or choke on something like you just, you never know, like these things pop up in life and they can happen suddenly, but we don't dwell on those things, right? The older you get, the more you dwell on them. Like I dwell on them much more now than I did 10 years ago and for sure much more than I did 20 years ago. And truth be told, I can remember a time when I never thought about it. When you're young and invincible and when you say your whole life's ahead of you, that whole life is like 60 or 70 or 80 years in your head, and it's like, you're invincible, like you just are and you know, once you hit your 40s, you start feeling some, you start feeling some of this some, you're not so invincible, right? It's decreased a bit and you hit your 50s, it's decreased a little more and you start seeing more and more people in your age group that aren't around anymore. Like just in the past, wow, I mean, I don't know, just in the past five years, just in the past five years, a family member younger than me died from cancer, a family member my age died from cancer, a guy I graduated with from school died, another guy I graduated from school with died. His friend of mine, I know his son who's around my age died, it starts, it starts becoming a reality that we are now in a in a age bracket where death is a much more part of life than it was when we were in our 20s. When you're in your 20s, you rarely ever have heard of somebody in your age group dying and if they did, it was because some horrific accident usually and oftentimes their fault I'm not saying always, but oftentimes their fault, they were drunk driving or they were going to bars and got in a fight with somebody that choose to fight with a gun or whatever is just some stuff like that, but rarely did you, when you were 18, did you hear of anybody that you knew that was 18 dying, it just didn't happen and once you're 50, the number of people you know that are 45 to 50 that die, you may hear two or three of them a year. Some of them close to home so it's a whole total of different things so all that being said still at my age I have a high level of confidence that whatever is trying to work itself out will work itself out for me at some point, but I also understand that I'm nearing a time where there is an eventuality and it won't be alright anymore and am I terrified by it, I'm not terrified by it, you know for me personally the way I chose to live my life and I was talking to somebody about this last week, I don't know my exact age, I told them I was 14, but I don't remember, I don't remember if I was 13 or 14 or 15, but it was for sure in one of those like three year ranges where I 100% made the decision that I would never have a child and I'm not going to go into why I had those decisions. I will say it's the same reason, well it's not the same, but it's a similar reason why my mom decided to never have a sibling for me, not the same but similar like adjacent reasons and I stuck with that decision, was very diligent with that decision, I have to tell you now when I'm at the age of that, now if I look back, I do believe my life is pretty empty now, everybody in my immediate family is gone, so I don't have siblings, don't have parents, don't have grandparents, don't have kids, don't have grandkids, like I'm like you know when I think about the eventualities of aging and how most everybody has somebody to help them through it and I start trying to count upon my fingers who I got to help me through it, like there's for sure a few that would be willing, but one I would never want to ask them to do it and two I don't even know how capable they would be given their own health battles and life battles and age related things and life related things and so you know I had a kid I would have no compulsion to go oh boy I really needed some help with this, help me do this. The spot I'm in now, if I'm in a situation like that now it would be very dire and so I don't, you know I try not to think about it, I hope it's a while before it comes and that's also why I'm very pro having the freedom and the tools to choose when to exit this place, I did an episode of the pod on that a while by way while back but you know I've really wish that had been available to my grandmother and I really wish it had been available to my mom although she wouldn't have taken it because it would have gone against their beliefs but you know I would like to at some point to go you know what, I say God forbid but it's not a certainty but it's a near certainty that one either some health event will take me out very suddenly or a help event will come that will take me out slowly and painfully in a grinding way and if that one happens to be my fate it would be really nice if I wasn't compelled by the government to stay here and suffer through it alone. I should have the ability to go okay I mean my life for all intents purposes is over and so I'm just gonna dredge around here and spend all my money on caretakers until I'm broke and poor and I have to trust people I don't know to take care of me and wipe the drool off my mouth and wipe my ass and stuff I mean no that's not a life I should be able to call a doctor and go look I want to schedule it this Saturday you know put the concoction together and let me go out on my terms peacefully and say goodbye to everybody that I know and you know but anyway that's another topic for another time I've already done a pot on that to a certain degree but again fate keeps that from happening because there's this well you can't do that because that's a sin which I've never understood I've never understood why me choosing when to leave here is a sin that doesn't make any sense okay whatever I'm gonna get into that it's not the purpose of this episode the purpose of episode is talking about the power of fate then the power of fate is huge fate is important everybody needs to have faith and I realized that for most people that comes in the form of faith in a higher power which I also don't have a problem with all I ever have a problem with is why do you people continue to try to force that on me you try to get laws written to force your beliefs on me you try to I'm not getting into it but you know your belief and your rules and your sins and stuff that's personal to you that's between you and your creator and it ain't between me I don't have that so stop trying to make me abide by it you know that's my problem with faith in the in the higher power and then that's also the world's problems because you got these huge nations and they all believe in a different one and they're willing to go to war over it and that's not good for anybody imagine how much peace there would be if there were no religious skirmishes just imagine it John Lennon was right imagine just imagine it like every single war we've had since I was 16 so that I was old enough to remember they've all been over well all definitely a part of it but religious differences seems like a pretty good place to wrap it up faith is huge my faith is based on different things it's based on statistics and my knowledge of the world and expectations based on what I know to comport with reality and other people's faith is based on some invisible being they've never seen never will see and the only way that's being every speech to them is through other people or through some book written 2000 years ago by ignorant sheet purters or completely anonymous people that one still continues to get me like I don't know how you put all your faith in these old writings by anonymous people like you literally don't know who they are and I had this guy this guy argue with me it's been a couple months ago he's like yeah Matthew Martin John definitely wrote was written by my I'm like was it really then why why are they referring to themselves in the third person there in some passages I want to say it happens in Matthew and Luke both where the writer talks about Luke talking to Jesus now if Luke were writing a book where he recorded a conversation he had with Jesus why would he write and on that day Luke was talking to Jesus and Luke said day Jesus and Jesus said yeah hey Luke look wouldn't do that Luke would say and on the third day after such such I was talking to Jesus and Jesus said to me anyway it's well known the people that those books are attributed to were long dead by the time they were ever written those people didn't write them we don't know who wrote them they were completely anonymous people and it's not always many the Old Testament books also written by anonymous people and so I mean I'm sorry I'm not putting my faith into the into the anonymous writings of people 2000 years ago I mean I sure as hell wouldn't put my faith in some anonymous person that wrote something today if somebody brought me a you know 500 page manuscript today and said boy we got this and it's this is straight from God this is this is inspired by God and I'm like well who wrote it I'm like well you don't know we found it but it's for sure inspired by God I'd be like how do you know well because he said it was you read it right here on page three like okay so some anonymous person that you don't know wrote on page three that one he was writing was inspired by God and you just believed him well yeah of course okay I mean alright then okay anyways I didn't really mean to go there it's not the top that's not the topic of this episode we're gonna cut this one short it's gonna be less than 30 minutes I feel good about that I think you've joined me today if you're a believer in whatever you believe in I don't hate you I don't dislike you I don't mean to condescend or sound condescending I am you I was you I've been there done that my mom was you right up to the end I promise right now there's nobody I love and respected more than my mom my mom she's one of the smartest wisest most compassionate people ever she just believed in stuff that I think is pretty nonsensical but I still respect her loved her adored her and I love you and we're humans cohabitating this planet and I don't deny you your faith in whatever to get you through life just don't try to force it on me and likewise you know respect my faith in the way I have faith and what I believe and don't believe and I won't try to force it on you deal deal thanks for being here today going to wrap it up we will talk to you in the next one I'm Victoria Cash thanks for calling the Lucky Land Hotline if you feel like you do the same thing every day press 1 if you're ready to have some serious fun for the chance to redeem some serious prizes press 2 we heard you loud and clear so go to luckylandslots.com right now and play over a hundred social casino style games for free get lucky today at luckylandslots.com No purchase necessary. 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