Ep. 16: The 3 Biggest Decisions of Your 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 the life I want, an intelligent life, or something else? How can I have a better experience of life?
Speaker 1:These are some of the questions explored in this series of messages without the brag and the advertisement. Getting beyond even human institutions and society into the wilderness, nature, the reality of how life actually operates on this planet. These messages range from intimate recordings from the awakened forest to concerts, national conferences, and broadcasts on a wide array of philosophical topics.
Speaker 2:To me, there are three major or big decisions in one's life. I know I wish I would have realized how big of decisions these were earlier in my life because they obviously dictate to some direction where you end up, how happy you are, what your experience of life is. So here they are, the three big decisions in your life, or at least three of them. Obviously, there could be others that I have not considered, but these are all pretty good ones. The first is, and they are in order of priority, most important is your choice of a mate or your choice to live alone.
Speaker 2:That's a major dictate. Why? Because that choice of a mate will color almost every decision you make. You will spend enormous amounts of your life with this person. And I know from experience that wife number one, because I do have a numerical system to keep up with this, was miserable.
Speaker 2: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 in many directions. Wife number two, loved this woman, this Australian bombshell, but I had bitten off more than I could chew trying to live in Australia and simultaneously live in America, have businesses, have music things going on in both, all those things, kids, relatives on this side, not being able to be with them. And just the sheer logistics of the situation wore me out.
Speaker 2:I had a breakdown, and so I had to make a choice. And Doctor. Smith, my good doctor, and it's good to have a good doctor, just sat me down and said, Andrew, you have bitten off more than you can chew. You've got to make a choice. And for me, both of these divorces were very difficult.
Speaker 2:Why? I was born and raised Catholic. Good Catholics don't do that. And finally, my mom liberated me one day. She just said, Andrew, you're living a horrid life, and you've got to do something about it.
Speaker 2:This was with wife number one. She had passed before my second marriage. But she said, You've you've got to get out of this. You've got to end this. This isn't good for you.
Speaker 2:It's not good for the kids. I know you're trying to do your best, but this is no good. And it's only then really when I had an illumination or could summon the courage to make that big move in my life. And then later I there is another person, just the love of my life, and for whatever reason, it did not work out ultimately, even though the feelings never changed. But this person that you live with, it's gonna impact you here.
Speaker 2:It's obviously gonna impact you when it comes to kids. And those kids will take over your life. Everything you do will be surrounded, at least for most parents, around the activities of the kids. And there we have it, you know, the kids are kind of the glue. And there's a lot of people that are in marriages that are great and that is to be commended.
Speaker 2:And with all marriages, of course, there are rough spots, there are times you need to tough through, there's times when you don't particularly like each other very much, but you come to some resolution. But then there's ones that are just not good, really for anybody. And we have to have the intelligence. So sometimes we need somebody to say, Hey, it's okay to go in a new direction. And I know that's what it took for me.
Speaker 2:Because this first choice, this choice 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, even the negative ones, to the richness of my life. But I like being alone. I like living to my own standards.
Speaker 2:I like making my own decisions. And I'm one of those that doesn't suffer from being lonely. I know loneliness is a big deal with a lot of people. But I suspect the more reconciled a person becomes with themselves, and of course a lot of this happens in the wilderness for me, in my isolation, The more that we appreciate life, the more that we realize that we're never alone, that we're always surrounded by the presence of divinity and God and life. And there's so many interesting things to do that I just like my own company to a large extent.
Speaker 2:Now with that said, I am a human being, so I am a social organism. So I like being around people. And I realize that part of my job in life is to be helpful. I mean, I am dedicated to it like a ministry. Healthfulness, incredible customer service, taking care of people, sharing.
Speaker 2:To me, I get great satisfaction from that. And that's just where I want to go. So with this said, big choice, or big decision number one, your choice of a mate or your choice to live alone. The second big decision comes from our choice of occupation. That is what we're going to do for work, for money, for value, for our psychic sense of meaning.
Speaker 2:Because you're going to spend a third or more of your life doing this activity. And, of course, a lot of times we have many professions and occupations in our life and there's nothing wrong with that. But I will say this, pick something that gives you energy, something you want to do. Because if you're living a life doing work that you don't particularly like, you probably have somewhat of a failed life. There are things, obviously, we all don't like to do in any job, but the predominant feeling that we must get from that occupation should be that of joy, that it's worthwhile, that it's worth doing.
Speaker 2:And even though there's a struggle in all occupations, you have to gain the skill, you have to serve your apprenticeship, you have to acquire the knowledge, this is the discipline, this is the pain aspect of happiness. But you make that sacrifice, and really it's not a sacrifice because you'll get it back compounded multi times. But you put in your duty, your obligation, you pay the price for that occupation and it adds again another layer of richness, but you're going to spend at least a third or more of your life doing this activity. If you're building a business, it's gonna take a lot more than that. Again, I do not know how to be successful in a forty hour week.
Speaker 2:In music or in any of our consulting businesses, or anything like that, I just know that it takes a tremendous amount of work to actually build a business. There's another thing to be an employee. When you're building that business, again in hard times, you're the one making the payroll. We're suffering through all of the heartaches that come with managing volumes of people. Every personality in a company has to be managed on some level.
Speaker 2:But this choice determines to a great extent how much money you're going to And money is a big part of the equation. Your choice of a mate, going back to big decision number one, makes a big difference too in your economics. I mean, wife number one would spend every penny I ever made, almost immediately. And I found this in multiple partner situations where, you know, and after a while it's like, God, you know, can't we all pitch into the pot? Does Andrew always have to make the money?
Speaker 2:So the economic thing, I'll say almost crosses all three of these decisions to some extent. Obviously, if you have a mate or partner that contributes substantially, even if it's supporting you, as you're putting in the hard time, the hard hours, rather than lording over people and making the person miserable that's trying to do the right thing. When I was knocking out my CPA and some of my different degrees, well, number one would just make it miserable, make it almost impossible for me to study on purpose. So a decision has to be made at some point when you've had enough. So your choice of mate or your choice to live alone, big decision number one.
Speaker 2:Number two, your choice of occupation or profession, number two. And the third big decision is the choice of where you're going to live. Why? Because you're going to spend so much time in this dwelling. And I will say this, it wasn't until I found the cabin, this broken down place, that I had a place I could really call my home.
Speaker 2:Something that felt like home. And all the other houses and stuff, I felt like a renter or felt like it was a temporary situation. But this was the first place, even with all the broken windows, 14 broken windows, water in the basement, graffiti, again, you could mow and discover a car. And myself and Daphne, we fixed it up by ourselves, it's so beautiful now. The whole estate is beautiful with all the houses and surrounding properties, but it's taken work.
Speaker 2:But the choice of where you live, where you're going to spend most of your time, your leisure time especially, which is so valuable, is a big deal. And it's not only the type of home you have, it's also the surroundings, it's about the neighbors because you can have some neighbors that can make you pretty miserable too. Like one time, again, I was living in Australia and a piece of property got away from me and some really low consciousness people moved in. I mean, are people that would think nothing of littering. I believe they had fighting cocks even on the property because it drove some of my other neighbors mad.
Speaker 2:They could have had a meth lab. But we had to suffer with that for some years until I had the opportunity to buy them out, in which I promptly did. And of course, as I always do, I buy the property and I probably don't do much with it. My job is more protection. But your neighbors influence your happiness to a great extent.
Speaker 2:So where you're going to live. And this really has to do with, again, this word I love called to luxuriate, which is really an aspect of wealth. To luxuriate just means to this word almost explains itself because it just means to lay back and feel the soft leather chair, to taste your food, to really enjoy your property, to mow the lawn and delight in it, to wash the dishes, to do all these things, these ordinary things, aspects of life, which I allude to so much, because that is so much about happiness. Just being able to appreciate ordinary things. It doesn't have to be the big spectacle things that we do in our lives.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be about the big achievement or anything like that. Just learning to luxuriate. And most of the time you're going to do that in your home. So your choice of where to live is a big aspect of your life or a big decision. So there we have it, the three big decisions in your life.
Speaker 2:And it's advice that I wish someone would have gave me earlier. It might have saved me from some of the heartaches and scars that I have, but I wouldn't be the person I am today without those. So in that, I'm grateful for all those. There's really nothing in my past there that I regret. All serves a purpose, and as I like to believe, there's really no waste in nature, and there's no waste in our lives.
Speaker 2:All can come together for the good.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. If you need anything further, just go to mbi.life.