Where's My Hope? | Happy New Year | The Mister Brown Show
Happy New Year! And welcome to 2022! Today we are going to talk about choices and consistency as well as discuss the question “Where is my hope?” I want to talk about our reaction to the pandemic as well as our Quote of The Day. Our choices have power and I honestly believe that when you make better choices you will truly live a better life!
Opening Monolog
I want to start by talking about a few different things, so I am going to call this part my Opening Monolog. I am really excited about this new year! I have really enjoyed doing these podcasts and I really appreciate the feedback people have been giving me. I would appreciate it if you would leave a rating on any of the podcast platforms or comment on YouTube! I am also on Patreon where you can support me and see some special content you can’t find anywhere else.
I get really excited about the message I get to bring. “When you make better choices, you will live a better life.” I truly believe that when you make better choices, your life will be better. Life comes down to choices and how you choose to respond to things in your life.
Today we are going to talk about how the issue is not the pandemic itself, but how we reacted to it. We reacted with such fear that we started making irrational decisions. Some may even call it Mass Psychosis. I am also going to share a video I made that supports our Quote of the Day. I want to refocus our efforts on choices. The saying, “When you make better choices, you will live a better life,” is not just about being a cool saying; it is about real life. A student challenged me once and said “What if we don’t want to make better choices?” That is still your choice. You can choose to make the better choice, or you can choose to make a bad choice. Making the better choice will lead to a better life. However, you are making a choice either way. Some examples would be to steal or not to, or to do your homework or not to. Another student asked me “My dad doesn’t trust me with boys, why?” I asked her if she had done anything to keep him from trusting her and she said that she had gotten pregnant once and didn’t tell him. Her past choices led to her dad not trusting her with her current choices. Life is all about your choices. I am not trying to tell you what to do, I am telling you that your choices matter!
Stop. Think. Choose Well.
I teach students to “Stop. Think. And Choose Well.” because their choices matter, and they have consequences. Now the word “Consequences” has such a negative connotation, so I like to say that “Choices have results.” Choices have 3 types of results; immediate, short-term, and long-term results. This concept can apply to a variety of things. Some of you may even be thinking about how it applies to the vaccine, or what I call the shot. This concept also applies to things like choosing to hang out with certain people, cheating on your taxes, cheating on your spouse, or lying. No one has a perfect life, but when you make better choices, your life will be better. It is not about having a perfect life, it is about having the best life you can have. So remember, “Stop. Think. And Choose Well.”
Quote Of The Day
There was a fable when I was growing up called “The Tortoise and The Hare.” A fable is a fictional story with a moral point. It normally has animals or inanimate objects to demonstrate the moral point of the fable. This fable starts with the Hare making fun of the Tortoise for being slow. The Tortoise then challenges the Hare to a race. The Hare laughs and accepts the challenge. The race starts and the Hare zooms off. The Tortoise just starts running the race at its own pace. The Hare gets so far ahead that he decides to stop for a snack. The snack makes him very sleepy so he decides to take a nap. While the Hare is napping, the Tortoise passes him. Eventually, the Tortoise is almost to the finish line when the Hare wakes up and runs towards the finish line. The Hare comes up short, and the Tortoise wins the race. The moral point of the story is also our quote of the day, which is:
“Speed is overrated, consistency is the key.”
Speed is overrated, but slow and steady won the race for the Tortoise. The Mister Brown way to say it would be, “Speed is overrated, consistency is key. Oh yeah!” You cannot go 100 miles per hour all the time. Some of you are already burned out, and it’s only day 6 of 2022. The key is consistency. Sometimes you have to start small to build that consistency. I have a friend who wants to get into shape, but he works very hard during the day and is often tired when he gets home. I challenged him to do 10 sit-ups and 10 push-ups each day. This will probably take him 2 minutes, but sometimes you have to take it slow. I told him to do that for 1 or 2 weeks to start building consistency. As you become consistent over time, it builds into “Big Mo,” or momentum. Consistency is something that only you can control. So start small or start slow, and choose well. Oh yeah!
Wrapping It Up
I want to end this episode with something from the heart. Our reaction to the pandemic has been really frustrating in some ways. From the beginning, the idea was to crush or eradicate Covid-19 instead of treating it. We have failed to treat people. When treatments emerged, they were demonized and politicized. We have only focused on one solution, a vaccine. Which is really only a shot. We allowed fear to make us irrational. Cruise lines that require vaccinations and masks are having covid outbreaks. The National Hockey League or NHL had to cancel their season because of covid infections, and they are mostly vaccinated. We are still pushing people to get this shot when it doesn’t do what it is supposed to do. Natural immunity is not even considered anymore. We should not be buying into the “show your papers” concept. If enough of us say “No more,” what are they going to do? Shut down the country? If they can control the narrative and the solution, I am more concerned about what’s next than I am about covid. I am not a conspiracy theorist, so please think about that for a second. It is frustrating and makes me question why more people are not standing up? We demonize and then ignore people who don’t get the shot. We keep doing the same thing that doesn’t work. It is insane!
How Do I Stay Positive?
The question is, how do I stay positive amidst all that I talked about above? The answer is that my hope does not lie in a cure for covid, a cure for any disease, my finances, my job, or my ability to make money. My hope lies in Jesus Christ. God is in control of all these things. My question throughout the pandemic has been “How do I leverage this craziness for the Gospel?” People are gripped with fear, but I am not fearful because my hope is in Jesus. I have a ministry called Proclaim Ministries where my focus is helping people Connect Faith & Life. You can learn more about it at: https://proclaimministries.com/. I mention this here because this is who I am. I am a Christ-follower. My hope is in Jesus. Jesus came to this world to die on the cross. He paid the punishment for my sins. This world is not my home. I am here for a reason and a season. My hope lies in Christ. If I didn’t have this hope, I would be miserable. If you would like to talk about this, please message me, or check out Proclaim Ministries. I am not talking about religion and going to church, even though going to church can be a good thing. I think religion is earning your way, and that is not what being a Christ-follower is about. This pandemic is frustrating for people because they are not in control. However my hope does not lie in things this world can offer, it lies in Christ. So where’s my hope? Mine is in Jesus Christ.
If you would like to know more about what I talked about, please check out Proclaim Ministries at: https://proclaimministries.com/
If you would like to learn about The Choose Well Program, you can visit: https://www.thechoosewellprogram.com/
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