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Take It Or Leave It

The Masculine Journey / Sam Main
The Truth Network Radio
January 11, 2025 12:30 pm

Take It Or Leave It

The Masculine Journey / Sam Main

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January 11, 2025 12:30 pm

Welcome fellow adventurers! This week, the guys discuss the things they want to leave in 2024, and the things they want to bring into 2025. The clips are from "The Lion King," and "Let Them," by Mel Robbins. 

Be sure to check out our other podcasts, Masculine Journey After Hours and Masculine Journey Joyride for more great content!

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This is the Truth Network Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're with us this week. It's only a few days, a couple weeks into 2025 and it seems like holidays are already a long time ago. Maybe it's just me. What holiday? Exactly.

Yeah, there were a couple of them in there. But no, it just seems like, wow, it's already on to the new year. Got to get things going. The cold weather. Well, the cold weather has not been fun. Yeah, it's not as cold as some places that you're listening, I'm sure, right now, but it's been cold for us. It's North Carolina cold. We actually had snow on the ground.

We did. And ice that stayed for a couple days. You go a little bit north and it's got quite a bit of snow. They got five inches and such. Oh, yeah. And such. It's the unsuch part that really...

The freezing rain, the sleet and whatnot. Yeah. Well, and then the whatnot. That's a totally different... Whatnot category.

Who's on first. And such and whatnot. You can't really be done without those. No, we haven't grown up any in 2025. But today's topic, what we're talking about is something that I saw in a meme or whatever you call it, wasn't a meme, whatever, a little picture thing.

All right, I'm not tech savvy. But it was as you were coming up to the end of 2024, beginning of 2025, I sent this out to the team, because I'd read it and it made me ask myself the same question. It says time to decide what you want to leave behind and what you want to take with you into 2025. And so the topic for today's show is, what are you leaving behind?

And what are you taking with you? And so that's what we'll be kind of talking about as we go through. And it honestly was a pretty good exercise for me to do. I don't know how you guys felt about doing it.

But it was a good thing to a different spin on the end of the year. But to say, okay, you know, let me look at some things a little differently. So to speak, you guys can they can't see a knot in your head on the radio. I can hear it in here. I just we can't go to the live feed. Yeah, we're on the video now.

Three of our listeners can, you know, see our hearing impaired listener. It looks like he's agreeing. There we go. And he's in agreement. But yeah, all right.

So anyway, not all of you speak at once. But that's okay. Was it a good exercise?

Danny? I'll just look at you and put you on the spot. Well, I struggled with it, to be honest. Okay, I'm glad you're being honest. Yeah, yeah, deep thought was not one of my giftings. So um, but no, it was just the contemplation it took to go, okay, what is it I really want to do here and there? So but yeah, it did come through. So it was good. It was good. Good. Anyone else?

Andy? You got any thoughts? I mean, it was the same kind of thing. And you know, as you get your heart back, and you're going from year to year, a lot of times, it's like, you feel like everybody struggles or whatever. But your hope is to always be trending up and hopefully not having to have a lot of stuff to be left behind.

But as I, as I got down deeper into it, I began to see some things that I needed to leave behind. And, you know, there's a lot of hope for the next year of things that you want. A lot of times, I think we we go into a year and we expect, you know, one of the some of the things is, one of the biggest things I think you end up leaving behind is unmet expectations from the previous year, the where you had hope, and we're not always going to get everything that we expect the results that we want, but you can have that hope for those things. Sometimes things, you know, things that you're believing for one got to see come to fruition in your life.

They're not always, you know, given to you by the end of the year, they they span multiple years. So it's just keeping the hope in your heart to see God do what he wants to do in your life and realize that he's, he's the orchestrator, and he's got the timeline, but just trusting in that and not losing hope. So, yeah, I think, you know, there's definitely things that we need to wait on God for. Yep.

Right. That God's got the timeline in it. I also think that there's things that are within our control, right? Some decisions that we have the ability to make and say, Okay, well, you know, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to eat desserts, right? I mean, God's not going to come down and say, I'll show not eat desserts, right?

He says I am. Yeah, you buy. But whatever the case may be, I mean, we have the authority to make some decisions in our life and, and to try to do our best. And I'm not talking about resolutions as much here on this is just a way that I want to look at things differently. Yep. Some things I want to be intentional about.

Yep. And I think something you know, you didn't have to be the resolutions because a lot of times I think resolutions end up being nothing but a, a, our will to try to do something. Yeah, I'm going to read a self help book. I'm going to try to improve in these areas. I think we're looking at it a little bit differently.

Things from your heart that you want to see come to fruition or whatever. But you still have that thing that calendar that delineates it 2024 to 2025. The second Friday in January, or the second Friday in January is still the second Friday. Yeah. National Quitters Day.

That's why most people statistically quit on their New Year's resolutions. It's that quick. And so yeah, it's, I'm glad I'm ahead of the curve. Yeah. Yeah. At least for this week.

We are. Yeah. So Danny, you have the first clip for the show today. So if you want to tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, it's feeling generous.

Yeah, it's feeling generous. You know, two weeks running. Where's Danny? I don't see him. He's, he's in camouflage. Yeah, in camouflage.

Yeah, he's hidden well. Yeah. My clip is from The Lion King. And we've used it before. And I absolutely love that movie. And this is from the original. And Rafiki and Simba are talking about, you know, Simba's coming back after being gone for so long. And they're talking about what he's got to deal with. And the clip is just fascinating and so well done.

And the interchange between them is priceless. And the so we can play it, then we'll talk about it afterwards. Here we go.

Oh, jeez, what was that for? It doesn't matter. It's in the past. Yeah, but it still hurts. Oh, yes, the past can hurt.

But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it. Ah, you see? So what are you going to do? First, I'm going to take your stick.

No, no, no, no, no. Where are you going? I'm going back.

Good. Sam, what I thought about was when you brought this topic up that, you know, what is it you want to leave behind? And that's a classic there that, you know, leave the pain of the past behind whatever in 2024 was not a stellar year for us. Some pain, you know, and some lessons learned. And so my idea behind this, when we brought up this topic was, I want to leave the pain behind, not dwell there. Because it's very easy to just kind of wallow in the pain in the situation of stuff, and carry that with you and it weights you down in order for, you know, Andy was talking about hope. So leaving that behind, but carrying the lessons of the wisdom of what maybe God was trying to teach me or, you know, the lessons of life that come, you know, wisdom comes from experience a lot of times. And so that's kind of my idea behind this.

You know, I want to carry the lessons of wisdom and, you know, hopefully to navigate similar situations in a better fashion or taking what I already know into another situation and not getting bogged down in all the pain and that kind of thing. So that was mine in a nutshell, I think. So basically, you couldn't find two clips. I didn't notice.

I didn't find any. No, see, the better way to have said that would be you were smart enough that yours was all in one clip where we had to have two clips. Dump dump. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, I was just giving you the comeback for the, I was gonna leave sarcasm behind in 2024. It just didn't make the list.

Yeah, it didn't make the top of the list. So some of us have began recently to submit more. I used to be the one that they that was always the Yep. Yep. You wouldn't you call me? Clifford is you. Clifford.

Clifford or? Well, the reason why we want to make sure we had enough clips for the show. Yeah, people coming in and out and stuff.

And Sam started cementing multiple and I did tonight too. But it's just, it's just you. Sometimes when somebody's there too, they can borrow a clip or you can, you know, sell it to them kind of like a, a letter on Are you standing up for Danny or standing up for yourself? I'm just explaining it. I'm not really standing up for anybody.

Sound like some condemnation. I know. It's like, man, I was joking. I guess I went into defense mode, but I'm just kind of explaining it. I was really defending the whole idea of, of, of doing that. So. I'm just messing with you, man. You know. I tried to stare you down and you just don't fall for it anymore. Yeah.

That you listeners don't care how the sausage is made. You know, it's just like, you know. He takes things kind of hard these days, doesn't he? He does. Defensive mode.

That's what I'm giving up for this year is being defensive. Really? Sure.

It doesn't sound like he's working. That was a question mark at the end of that statement. You're going to leave it behind in 2025. Yeah. It's really hot.

It's going to go cold really quick. Yeah. Yeah. I'm working on why I'm giving you up next year when I go into 2026. 2026 is a prophetic word. Do you know it's 25 already?

It is 25. Yeah. So far I've yet to mess up the date, which is surprising.

I haven't had anything I've had to remember it for, thankfully. Anybody write any checks yet? Nope. No. Mine's all electronic.

Do people still write checks? Yeah. I know.

That's where he used to. You messed it up most of the time, man. Yeah.

It's when you don't want to pay people immediately. Oh, I have to rewrite that. Let me rewrite that, Shaq. I'm sorry. I can't believe I misspelled my name on that. I don't know how I messed up my signature on that thing. Mine was always, I can't be broke.

I still got plenty of checks left. That's right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Well, we're going to be heading into break, but I want you to be thinking about as we head into break, what are you giving up from last year and not going to take with you? I mean, we can decide. Just because it's no longer 2024, we can make this decision tomorrow. Or you can make it today or you can make it next week. All right. It's arbitrary that we just pick the end of the year, just do all these things, but you can start today. Yeah, for sure. Right. So what do you want to leave behind in 2024?

Leave it back there. And what is it that you're wanting to take with you into 2025 or start new in 2025? And we're going to be talking a lot about that when we come back, but go to masculinejourney.org to look for any upcoming events. We don't have anything posted yet. We are working on a spring bootcamp.

We know about when we want to do it, but we got to lock down exactly where in the timeframe. So keep checking there and we'll talk with you after the break. Let me know that without him, I'm nothing. I don't got nothing and I will be nothing. So I decided to come back and just right now for the first time, like I've been through a lot of things.

Like as you see me tattoos all over and everything. I've been through a war. So for the first time in my life in these on these camp, I've been able to feel that peace in my heart. I haven't seen my family in over eight years now, but I actually can say today that I'm okay with it. God is with me and he's been dealing with my heart on a way that I never experienced it before. And I'm just thankful and grateful. Register today at masculinejourney.org Welcome back to masculine journey.

We're talking about that right now. Should I stay, should I keep doing fill in the blank? Should I go? Should I move on to something else? Right?

Should I leave it behind? And so that seemed like a fitting bump. Yeah, that was my bump. That's why I said that. But it's from the clash and it's from, I don't know, 80s probably. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm guessing back in the 80s. I didn't look it up. I think it's a good time for Harold to share the scripture on this too. Oh, is there a scripture Harold that you want to share on this? What you were looking for? No, no, no, he's no, no, he's playing crossword. Yeah, it wasn't a crossword puzzle.

Let me see if I can. So now that you called him out, you're trying to find a scripture real quick. Philippians 3, 12 through 14 helps me to keep this thing in mind. This is what Harold's response was. But you remember it? No, I'm old.

I have to look it up. But basically it's, you're forgetting those things from behind me and pressing on to the high calling Christ Jesus, right? Yeah, okay. Sorry to put you on the spot. I thought you actually were looking that up. So there's an ASV, an anti-standing version.

That was it. And everybody will call in and correct us or whatever. Or email in. And our phone number is what? So just go ahead and email it.

Andy at masculinejourney.org. This is becoming a show of mess ups. No, no, it's because I'm being critical of everybody. I'm just actually having fun. Are you going to try to give that up this year? No, no, that's, no, I enjoy it too much.

It's not at the top of the list. So we'll see what God has in store. So the next clip is my clip. And so this is actually something I saw online. It's from a lady named Mel Robbins.

I don't know if she does counseling or what. She has a lot of little one minute, two minute, little sayings or little things to make you think. And this is one of them called, it's just called let them. And so this is what I want to leave behind with me in 2024 and not take with me in 2025. And I'll talk more about it after we listen to it. I just heard about this thing called the let them theory.

I can love this. If your friends are not inviting you out to brunch this weekend, let them. If the person that you're really attracted to is not interested in a commitment, let them. If your kids do not want to get up and go to that thing with you this week, let them. So much time and energy is wasted on forcing other people to match our expectations.

And the truth is if somebody, especially somebody you're dating or who's a friend or somebody you're trying to partner with in business, if they are not showing up how you need them to show up, do not try to force them to change, let them be themselves because they are revealing who they are to you. Just let them and then you get to choose what you do next. I found that actually very freeing when I listened to it. And I saved it as one of the videos I'd wanted to do.

I want to come back to but now I have it on here so I can listen to it whenever I want. But when I'm really honest with myself, I have a lot of high expectations. I'm sure I might not be the only one in the room that does that but I have a lot of expectations the way I think people should respond or should do this or a lot of shooting on people.

You know that they should do this or should do that, that kind of thing and it's not healthy for them and it's not healthy for me. You know and it gives the enemy a good foothold, right? Because when somebody doesn't meet an expectation then there's usually frustration that comes behind that, right? And frustration is just another word for anger, right?

And so in your anger do not give the enemy a foothold and so that's often when he gets a foothold is when we're upset about something or we feel wronged, right? And I'm not talking about the things that are just normal courtesies. You know someone's promised you they're going to do something and you know you're expecting them to pick you up at the airport for example, you know? If they decide not to I'm going to feel a little differently than just let them, you know what I mean?

I mean obviously we have to get an Uber either way but you know there's going to be a conversation because okay I should have, you should have told me about this. I mean I'm not saying it doesn't lack holding accountability but there's a lot of things outside of those type of situations where I have expectations. Where it's just a choice.

Yeah. Where it's there's no agreement or contract per se. You know when I say that not officially but it's like you said you would do something and then you didn't do it. Even then you could say let them but really you're talking about those things where a person has a choice to do this or that and they just don't choose what you wanted them to do I think is what you're saying.

Yeah I'll give you an example. I invited my daughter over this weekend and they had something come up later on that they needed to do and wanted to do and she reached out to me and said hey is it a big deal if we don't come? I'm like no that's not a big deal at all. You know I mean it's you have something else you need to go focus on it's not that big a deal but you know it's easy to set there but probably a different example would be you know a lot of you guys and I told you this before the show a lot of you guys like to hunt. I really don't care to hunt. I really don't have a desire to hunt. That dog won't hunt. No I just don't want to hunt and don't call me a dog. And that's where I was going. Yeah no I picked that up.

I'm slow just not that slow. And it'd be easy for me you know when you guys are all talking about hey we're gonna go do this this weekend or go do that that weekend to let the enemy to feel to get in and say see they're leaving you out. Even though it's not something I really want to go do right but you know being logical doesn't always make sense. You know the enemy is not always logical in his approach right.

You know he'll get you upset over things that you don't need to be upset on. And so it's been very freeing just to say okay I'm just gonna let people be people let them make their choices and I really like what she said at the end. Now you kind of know where they are and you can make choices. But if I'm always forcing people to do what I want them to do a did they do it because they wanted to probably not and be really where they add on the whole situation and I don't get a deal with the truth.

I'd much rather deal with the truth and not get the enemy a foothold. Yeah the biggest thing I remember hearing there is the children. Yeah. Well the children are basically have to do whatever you tell them to do.

I mean that's a little bit different. There's some places where as they get older you're like okay I'll give you a little freedom here. You can not go with me or something but for the most part it's no you're going to do what I tell you to do because you're my child. And you just go okay. They're usually fine with that but it's no the situation explain it to them talk to them so then okay you're going with me when I go to these places and then when you start to say okay we're going to stay home you're going to be good. Make sure that you have an expectation out of them.

And then usually it works a lot better. Yeah and I think it depends on whether they're 10 or they're 22. Yeah I mean it's all context right?

Yep you get more and more freedom as they get older and those are the kinds of things you're looking for in that relationship. Right yeah anything else anyone would like to add? We get on to our next clip. Well there's a there's a paragraph I'm familiar with of 12-step programs when we think of it. I had to look it up. Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.

When I'm disturbed it is because I find some person place thing or situation some fact of my life unacceptable to me and I can find no serenity until I accept that person place thing or situation as being exactly the way it's supposed to be at this moment. I think that's kind of what you're talking about. Absolutely. Is this is the way it is not really much I can do about it so I get to make choices when I know what the rules of engagement are at that point so.

So I'm trying not to take undue expectations in with me and in any situation. You want to go hunting this weekend? No I'm good. You guys enjoy. Okay. Yeah I'm going to stay warm. I'm being worthy. You want to shoot Danny? No not this weekend. Think about that one though didn't you? Yeah not this weekend. He paused a little bit too long.

Well I mean I think it's also a reflection of the heart of God of giving us a free will to choose and even though God wants us to make the right choice because he knows it's always going to be better for us he still doesn't want to he wants it's a gift to give us that free will he doesn't want a robot he wants to be chosen just like we want to be chosen but that gift of free will is essentially what we're talking about here is to give people that freedom to make the choice that they desire. Andy I've got I think we can get your one clip in we've got a couple minutes left so we can get your least favorite clip on there for me. I'm going to take that with me till next year too right? All right yeah.

All as many Forrest Gump clips as I can. Yeah do you have time to set it up? Probably I don't like Russian. All right then we'll wait till next time. Well we don't want to Russia.

Well yeah it's all about you Andy so go ahead. I have no expectations. How much time do we have? We have about two minutes left and so we don't have enough time now. You waited like 30 seconds. 30 seconds yeah yeah it would have been like a that dude doing the FedEx commercial talking real fast like that's all it is like. Well in any legal ease but yes this is radio 30 seconds is time for commercial I'm just saying. 30 seconds is a lot of time. We get two of them in a minute so.

Why don't you ask us what we're giving what we're taking with us and what we're leaving behind. Well I think you just did. That's kind of what are you Andy? Yeah well I'll do it but it won't be associated with my clip. Well then don't do it.

You know some of the things I was well yeah instead of just burning words here. One of the things for example my hope is to leave sugar behind in 2024. I kind of have.

That's not like a pet right? No okay no. I'm not totally leaving sugar behind. Sugar sugar. No no I have I have made some better health choices and I've given up sugar not totally but a lot of it and I've it's changed my life and I want to carry on some of the habits. We can see it's changing you that's good.

I'm about halfway there. Yeah you're not nearly as sweet as you used to be Andy. I'm telling you what talking about sugar it looked like I'd see myself on these videos and I thought I saw a marshmallow sitting in my chair like he ate a big marshmallow.

We're not going to see you before long. Yeah that's the hope you know just disappear but you know the thing is 2024 was good in that way it took me I was I just last few years it's like I just had no desire to go into that I'd lost quite a bit of weight about 10 years ago and I knew what it took mentally to do that stuff and I don't this isn't big on like new year's resolution. I started this last year it has nothing to do with like. Last year.

Yeah I mean like this year yeah last year. You started 2024. Started in September of last year and so you know it was so fruitful so I mean I feel like I had more clarity of thought and all and you know it was just simple you know not eating as many carbs and processed foods that simple and then I felt more like exercising and that stuff it's like a snowball you know you begin to gain and get some wins and stuff so again it's this is not anything I used to be so bad about trying to do things from you know the flesh and just trying to do by willpower you know you're talking about the quitters and all that I failed so many new year's resolutions but I believe this is really generated from the heart and just feeling like I truly want to be the most I can be for God and I had to have my body to do it. There you go your mind's needed too but we'll work on that next. Well I feel like I got both back even more so I think I got more clarity of thought and stuff. Go to masculinejourney.org to reach out to us and this week let yourself be loved and love somebody else well we'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-11 14:49:04 / 2025-01-11 15:00:28 / 11

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