- So my journey when it comes
to learning to be content actually started where
most of yours started that you can remember, mine started in high school. I went to a high school that
started in the eighth grade, it was eight through twelfth,
not ninth through twelfth, so we were all about
this tall, okay? And so the eighth through
twelfth grade, long time ago, and I quickly, and everybody's
looking for their group and their deal and I
realized real quickly that even though I was
a good kickball player in our cul-de-sac, I was not
an athlete in our high school. So the athletes weren't
gonna be my deal, and because they weren't my
deal and they intimidated me, I did not like athletes. And then I realized
I'm not smart, my parents told me I was smart, but then in high school I
realized my parents lied, I am not smart. (audience laughs) I did not make good
grades and I studied hard and everybody would
be finished studying, I'm like, wait a minute,
we're not done are we? And they're done,
and so I'm making Cs, so I wasn't smart, so I
didn't like smart kids because I didn't relate to them. I could not play
a wind instrument, okay, if you cannot play a
wind instrument in high school you cannot be in the - [Audience Member] Band. - The band, that's right. And my parents didn't
want me to play the drums, so I didn't like the band
people, they didn't like me. So we weren't rich, so I
didn't like the rich people. So basically at high school
I didn't really like anybody because I wasn't like anybody, and you want to be liked
by people you're like and even if you're not like them you'd like to be liked by them so you try to be like them, but if you're not like
them, you're not like them. And so this is my first memories of feeling like an outsider. And the thing was, I
came up with an excuse like all of us do, right,
we manufacture reasons not to like people so that we
feel better about ourselves because it's easier to
come up with five reasons why I don't like them
than to admit the fact that, well, I'm just not smart, I'm not athletic, I'm not rich, I can't play a wind instrument, I don't really fit in anywhere. And then in the eleventh
grade I had my big break, and I actually am feeling better about just kind of
getting this off my chest, I think I've been carrying this (audience laughs) a long time. In the eleventh grade
I had my big break because our whole class,
the eleventh, junior class, was supposed to do some
kind of field day thing, I don't even remember, you
kind of blank those things out 'cause they're
terrible, and it rained, and so they put all of
the eleventh graders
in the cafeteria with no teachers because they're
out there drinking coffee and all the eleventh graders
are in there for this half the day, or not half the
day, but couple of periods because this thing
got rained out. And so I'm sitting there and
we're all looking around, and so it's a typical
cafeteria, there's a stage, and there was a grand
piano on the stage and I had learned
to play the guitar, I taught myself
to play the guitar and then I taught myself to
play the guitar on the piano. Does anybody know what it means to learn to play the
guitar on the piano? Let me explain it to you, you
don't know how to read music and you can't play the
melodies, but you just, you're nodding, you know
what I'm talking about? So you play an octave
in the left hand that's like boom, boom,
boom, that's like the bass, and then you just play
chords with your right hand. And I learned to play, I could
play any song that I'd heard, I had a great ear, I didn't
know how to read music. So I got up on the
stage and I just started playing the piano
and of course it's loud and people came up
around the piano, people I didn't know,
'cause I didn't know anybody because I didn't like
anybody and nobody liked me. (audiences laughs) And it was mostly girls, so
this was like a win, right? And so they would ask for a song and I could pretty
much play anything, no well, but well enough
that everybody'd sing it, and suddenly I found my
place in this world, right, because there was
something I was good at and I was liked and
I liked being liked and so I graduated
from high school, I decided this is what I'm
gonna do the rest of my life 'cause I liked it
and people liked it that I liked it and I was
good and I was getting better, and so I decided
to major in music. Went to Georgia State University and I decided to
be a music major, and so I did that first
semester and second semester where you do all the
stuff you have to do and then I was gonna
get into the core, and so I went to
music department and I thought I'm
gonna find somebody, maybe I'll try out to be a
pianist in the jazz band. Now, understand, I
could not read music, but that wasn't
gonna get in my way 'cause I could
just listen to it, learn it, and fake it,
that was gonna be my plan. And if you know
anything about music, you know how far that
would've gotten me majoring in music
at a university. So I'll never forget
this, I was on the, I don't know what the
school's like now, it was a few years ago,
so I'm in the basement and there all have
these practice rooms with all these little
studios with pianos. And I'm walking down the
hall trying to find somebody to talk to and I hear
this jazz piano music that's like otherworldly,
like I'm listening, it's echoing down the
halls and I'm thinking, what in the world, and I was
hoping it was a recording and there wasn't
actually somebody at Georgia State University
that could play that well unless perhaps it was a teacher. And I go around the corner
and there's some students standing out in the hall looking in this little practice room, and I get behind
them and I look in and there's the room is full, and there's a grand
piano in there and there's a guy in
there, I found out later his name is Jerome,
and he was like, it was like butter,
it was like magic, it was like I think I
will change my major. (audience laughs) And I did, because I
could never be that good, and if I'm never
gonna be that good I'm never gonna make
it and it's just not gonna go well for me. So, the moral of the story
is, and you know this and I'm just gonna put some
words around some stuff that you already know. There is always somebody
with more er, right? You know this, right? There is always
someone who is richer, who is skinnier, who is
smarter, who is hipper, who is more talenteder,
or their girlfriend is prettier, or their
boyfriend is cuter, or their job is betterer,
I mean everywhere you look, whatever you want to do,
whatever you want to be good at, whatever you think
you're good at and whatever you think
you've accomplished, there's always
somebody with more er. So what we do, or what I did, I shouldn't put this on
you, maybe it's just me. What I did is I looked around
for people with less er. So because when
I was with people that had less er than my er, then I felt superiorer,
and we all want to feel like we kinda got it going on and we want to feel
a little bit superior so this becomes a dynamic
that we live with, and I don't think
it ever goes away. And then there's some of us,
and this isn't me so much, or maybe it is, but I
don't know if I want to go this far in
public confession, there's some of us that
don't even want to be an er, we want to be an est, we
want to be the richest, I want to be the smartest,
you want to be the healthiest, you want to be the cutest,
you want to be the skinniest, you want to be the
prettiest, you want to be the retweetedest, okay,
you want an est, right? So the moral of the story
is there's just no win, there's never ever
any win in comparison. You may have heard this before, you may have heard
me say this before, there's just no
win in comparison. In fact, comparison is what
puts the dis in discontentment. And discontentment
fueled by comparison, as we're gonna see
in a few minutes and as all of us
already have a story, this isn't new information, discontentment
fueled by comparison is actually very dangerous. Okay, some of you
have consumer debt because you stared at
somebody else's lifestyle for too long, didn't you? Some of you have consumer debt because you stared
at what somebody else drives for too long. Some of you have consumer debt because you visited their house, you should've never
visited their house because when you went
back to your house you kinda walked
around like this, like man, these
eight foot ceilings, I feel like they're
coming down on me, I need 10 or 12 foot ceilings and you went out and got
yourself another mortgage and now you got all this debt. And you hate it, I
mean we all hate debt, debt's just the worst
thing to have to live with that just seeps into all
of our relationships, money is kind of
weird in that way, money becomes emotional
when you owe money. You've learned that, we've
all learned that as adults. But unfortunately,
you've lived long enough to experience what
happens when you stare at what other people
have that you don't have, it becomes very dangerous, it
becomes dangerous relationally it becomes dangerous,
I mean some of you are dieting
yourself to death, some of you are working
yourself to death, some of you are studying
yourself to death, and what's driving
you, you tell yourself, oh, I'm just trying to
maximize my potential. That's a good thing to
maximize your potential, but unfortunately we're trying to maximize somebody
else's potential that doesn't even know
we're competing with them and oftentimes we're
killing ourselves financially,
relationally, emotionally, it goes on and on and on, and it's because
we live in a world, obviously, where we know
what everybody else has, and we know what
everybody else drives. And then it gets really
weird relationally, like I experienced
in high school and with a couple
of groups of people or types of people I've
really struggled my whole life and I'm old enough and
mature enough to know now it's my issue not theirs. But this whole comparison thing, this will put you
at odds with people that you know you'll
never be like, that you know you'll
never be as much as whatever it is you want
to be as that they are as, that you just aren't gonna
be able to measure up to. So we do what I
did in high school, we don't outgrow this,
we kind of shrink back and we create reasons
why they're not okay. The problem is they're okay,
it's just that we're not okay, and you find yourself
not being able to get along with
certain kinds of people who remind of who
you'll never be and what you'll never look like and who you'll never marry and what you'll never
do in your future. They got your job,
they're living your dream, and you're just miserable. And then, again, because
of the world we live in and this isn't gonna change so please don't hear me about to give you the
solution to this, I just want you to feel
horrible about yourself and then we'll sing a song, (audience laughs) I mean this is church, right,
I mean that's what you do, you just feel bad about
yourself, that's the goal, then you go home and go ah,
I didn't learn anything, but at least we all
have the same problems. So, anyway. (audience laughs) I want to give
you a way forward, but the world we live
in, I mean I'm like you I live on a laptop or
I live off of my thumbs and every browser reminds
me of what I don't have. Every website, I'm
not even looking, I mean, right,
everybody's tracking us. The other day Sandra and
I were talking about Uber, and we were saying,
she said, I wonder, I'm not making this up, she said, I wonder if
there's such a thing as an Uber give card? I promise you, I promise
you, on both of our phones, on my iPad and her phone
ads started showing up for you can buy a
gift card for Uber. I'm like, I'm sitting. (audience laughs) I mean you hear those
stories and we laugh like, ah, they're not that efficient. I'm tellin' ya,
unbelievable, right? So everywhere you
look you're reminded of what you don't look like, you're reminded of where
you don't work out, you're reminded that
there's not enough shiplap in the world to make you happy. (audience laughs) Right? I mean we all know this. And now the worst thing, I
wasn't an Instagram person, and, again, here's, I mean
this is how this works, all my preacher
friends, you know, 'cause I'm a pastor and the
pastor of a large church, so I have friends who are
pastors of large churches, and I had more Twitter
followers than them. (audience laughs) I mean, doesn't really
matter, I don't really look. (audience laughs) But they had way more
Instagram followers than me and one day Sandra says,
so and so and so and so has 150,000 Instagram followers. I'm like, oh my gosh, okay, and then now I'm like thinking
about this all the time and God in heaven's going, what? (audience laughs) I called you to do
and what do you? And now even on Instagram
I'm trying to be sane, but it's like now they're
advertising stuff on, I mean, it's just everywhere. So the thing is this
isn't going away, and the point of the message
isn't that culture's bad and we need to abandon
society and all come together and live in a commune. I mean that's not it,
it's not going away, this is not a problem
that can be solved, right? And then there's this,
and then I'll try to get to something practical, then there's the whisper. I don't know what
else to call it, you might have a better
name for this than me. I just call it the whisper. There's this voice, it
sounds a lot like my voice, I don't know what your
voice sounds like. There's this whisper
that basically just says, you need what they
have to be respectable, acceptable, and lovable. I mean, that's kind of the moral of the culture story, right? That you need, it's a whisper, it sounds like my voice but
it's a whisper, it's in my head. You need what they
have to be respectable, acceptable, and lovable. And I've lived long
enough to know this, let me tell you something
about they, okay? Let me tell you
something about they. They, whoever they are for you, whether it's just images,
it's people on browsers or it's people that
you know and they have and that you need to have what, they, they actually
have the same voice in their head whispering
the same thing, because no matter what you have
or what you've accomplished, there's no win in comparison,
it never leads anywhere. In fact, the wisest man
who ever lived, Solomon, who had it all, done it
all, been there, done that, the wisest man who ever lived, he just summarized it
this way, he said this, he wrote this, envy
rots the bones. Wow, that's extreme. Envy rots bones. So the bottom line for our
time together is simply this, knock it off. Okay? Just stop doing that, right? If only it were that easy, and I wish I could
come out here tonight and say, let me
tell you how this will never affect you again, I can't tell you how
to make it go away, but I do want to tell you
how to manage this tension, because it's not going away. But, it won't away, but it
does not have to control you, and it does not
have to drive you. And as I was preparing
for our time tonight, honestly I found myself in
sort of devotional mode going, God, I am so glad I'm
talking about this because I need a reminder, because even though I'm
not high school anymore there are just other
versions of the same thing and it has the potential
to ruin our lives, it has the potential to
drive us crazy financially, it has the potential to
make us less generous, because as long as I'm
trying to keep up with people I can't keep up with,
I don't have any margin to give to other people. And I don't have margin
to support the things that I want to support, because I'm trying to
keep up with people that don't even know I'm
trying to keep up with them. So this isn't a problem
that is ever solved, but this is a tension that we
all have to learn to manage, especially if
you're a Christian, especially if you're
a Jesus follower because this intersects
with your relations, this intersects with
your relationship with your heavenly Father
who has called you, this is an amazing thought,
we're not gonna develop it, but it's just an
amazing thought, who called you, get this,
according to his purpose. Wow. What if you missed God's
purpose for your life because you were trying
to keep up with a culture that's not even a
thing, it's a myth? We're gonna see a
word in just a minute that Solomon's gonna
give us that helps us kinda put, sort of personify
this ghost, this vapor, this thing, this illusion
that we all chase, this thing that has
the potential to
steal the joy of life, not a problem to be solved. So what I want to do in our
few minutes that's left, is my goal is to give you
a mental line of defense, I know that sounds kind
of technical and weird, a mental line of defense. In other words, a place
that you can go mentally when you start
drifting toward envy or discontentment emotionally. Because for most of this, even
though it starts right here with our eyes or our ears
or but generally our eyes, it gets emotional real quickly, suddenly we're feeling
behind, we're feeling unloved, we're feeling ugly,
we're feeling like
we're not keeping up, we're just, we're feeling
like we're not everything we ought to be and everything
everybody expects us to be. So what I want to do tonight
is I just want to give you a couple of phrases
that I hope that you will kind of drive deep
down into your soul. And as you experience the
tug, as you hear the whisper, and you're gonna hear
it the rest of your life just like I am, that we would
have a place to go mentally to tell ourselves
something that is so true and so instructional
that it may keep you between the guardrails,
and if you're a Christian, it may help direct you toward
God's purpose for your life. So back to the wisest
guy that ever lived, he's jumping right into a
little bit of a narrative and he's kind of telling
us what he's seeing. He's an old man now and
he's been there, done that, he's so wealthy,
Solomon was so wealthy, he'd accomplished so much, so he has all this
life experience and he's downloading
his life experience for people like us who
have less life experience and will never experience life
like here's experienced it, because part of the
allure of culture is if only I had,
if only I drove, if only I looked,
if only I married, and Solomon says to
this, hey, hey, hey, been there, drove it,
lived in it, married it, looked like it, bought
it, sold it, been there, whatever your deal
is I've done that, and so let me tell
you what I've learned through my years of having
been there and done that as it relates to the whisper,
if only, if only, if only. So here's what he says, he says, and I saw, he's talking about
something he saw in the past, and I saw that all
toil, all work, and all achievement, all
you goal setters, you know, all toil and all
achievement spring from one person's
envy of another. It's like what, he
goes, yep, I've seen it, I know what's
happening out there. This isn't new, this is 3,000
years old at least and older. In other words, he
says, I looked around and I realized everybody
is simply competing. Everybody is determining,
this is shocking, this is embarrassing,
because this is so true, everybody is determining
where they are based on where
everybody else is. Everybody is determining,
to speak of it in the way that he would, that everybody, I look
around and I notice that everybody is
determining where they are based on where other people are. And then he says this,
this too is meaningless. And then he gives us our phrase, then he gives us
this mental image, he gives us a phrase that
I want you to memorize, I just want this to become
part of your mental language, you know what a
mental language is, it's stuff that you don't
necessarily say out loud, you just think it. And, by the way, there's things
that you should just think. (audience laughs) They should never come
out of your mouth, okay, just a little lesson. Honesty is not saying
everything that's true. That's foolish, you
will have no friends. Honesty is not saying
everything that's true, honesty is just making sure
that what you say is true. So are these some true
things you should never say, but anyway, so I
want to give you something that you
say to yourself or you may need to say out loud, but here's the phrase,
this is so powerful. So I'm gonna read
the whole verse and then I'm gonna
add this last part. And I saw that all toil
and all achievement spring from one person's
envy of another. This too is meaningless,
and here's the phrase, a chasing after the wind. Isn't that powerful? A chasing after the
wind, it's endless, it's pointless, there
is no finish line, there is no trophy because
there is no winner, and there is no peace,
there's just er. Not argh, (audience laughs) er. Dissatisfaction guaranteed. Dissatisfaction guaranteed, because comparison is what
puts the dis in discontentment, and discontentment,
dissatisfaction guaranteed. It steals the joy, and
here's the tragedy, it steals the joy from
our accomplishments. It steals the joy from
what we have done. It steals the joy from
the goals that we have set and have accomplished, because somebody else
has accomplished more, because somebody else has more. So, when you catch yourself, and, you know what,
here's the thing, you're gonna catch yourself before you even leave
this auditorium. You're gonna catch yourself
before this hour is out, but when you catch
yourself looking, oh man, I wish I had
hair like that, you know. I wish I had skin like that, wish I had, oh, that she
looked so good in that, I wouldn't look good in that. He looked so good in that,
I'm not even gonna try. When you catch yourself looking, when you catch
yourself drifting, when you catch yourself
looking and drifting in somebody else's direction, when you catch
yourself drifting over into someone else's lane, that's when you say to yourself, and for some of us I think
we should say it out loud, not loud enough for
everybody else to hear but just loud enough to stop us, that's when we say, ah, that's chasing the wind,
that's chasing the wind. Ah, no, no, no,
not gonna buy that, that's just chasing the wind, keep going. That's just chasing the wind, mmm, chasing the wind. And I don't chase the wind. So I want us to say
this out loud together, both of these phrases,
you ready, here we go, that's chasing the wind. One more time. That's chasing the wind. And I don't chase the wind. Do you? I mean, come on, this isn't
a Christian religious thing, this is just a thing thing, do you want to spend the rest
of your life chasing the wind? No. Why? 'Cause there's no win
in chasing the wind, there's no win in comparison. There's no trophy,
there's no finish line, there's no (sighs) I did it. You did what? I don't know, I just did it. (audience laughs) There's no win, okay? There's always faster,
cuter, smaller, younger, hipper, I mean, bigger,
it's chasing the wind. And come on, I don't
know you personally, but I know this, your
life is too valuable and your life is too short
and your time is too valuable for you to waste any
of it chasing the wind. So the moment those
emotions, those feelings of inadequacy and
I'm not rich enough and I didn't measure up to
what my parents thought I, all that stuff you go, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's chasing the wind,
and I don't chase the wind. Now, fortunately
Solomon's not through 'cause he knows there's
another side to this and he knows what some
of us are thinking. Because the whole idea
of not chasing the wind is not an invitation
to be passive. In fact, remember
Solomon wrote this, Solomon accomplished more
than you will accomplish in your whole life, and I'm
not trying to put you down, I'm just saying like he was
the king of a nation, okay, he had endless resources,
he built a temple, you can still go see
the base of the temple. I mean, he's an amazing person. So he wasn't passive,
he wasn't like, eh, just live and let live,
it doesn't matter, you live today and gone tomorrow and he said some things
like that in Ecclesiastes, but in terms of
his life personally he accomplished a great
deal, so here's what he says, he says, now don't take this
to an unhealthy extreme, fools fold their hands
and ruin themselves. Fools say, well, you know what, since I can't keep up, since
everybody's better than me, since everybody has
more talent than me, since everybody had
a better family, since everybody had,
since everybody else, I'm just not even gonna try. Solomon say, no, only
a fool does that. Being unproductive
is not the answer, so he brings, in
this next verse, this is so powerful, it's like, if you don't ever
read the Bible, you
should read the Bible, in fact, start with
what Solomon wrote. In fact, if you're
not a Christian and you're not into
the Jesus thing, hey, Jesus wasn't
born for a long time, start with Solomon,
he was just a king and these are just wise sayings, it's just that they're found
in the Bible, which is great. And here's what he says next, so he brings these
two extremes together. He's like, look, don't spend
your life chasing the wind, and don't fold your hands
and go oh well, why try? Don't spend your
life chasing the wind and trying to keep
up with people that don't even know you're
trying to keep up with them, images on a screen,
and at the same time, don't just throw up
your hands and give up, and he brings them together
in this next statement that's so powerful. Some of you perhaps
just need to memorize this statement, he says
this, better, I love this, better one handful
with tranquility than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind. Isn't that great? You're like, I don't
even know what it means. I know, I'm gonna explain it
in a minute, but it is great, so just take, okay, but
look at the imagery of this. He says it's better to have
one handful with tranquility, which rubs us the wrong
way in our culture because our culture
isn't about one, our culture is about two,
our culture's about more. If I had four hands, I'd
have four handfuls, you know, I mean it's all about
more, more, more. He says, okay, I have
more than all of you so just shut up and listen
for a second, I'm telling you, one handful with tranquility, one handful with
tranquility is better than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind. Tranquility means satisfaction, tranquility means you
drive home at night and you go into your apartment
or you go into your house and (exhales) you're fine. Tranquility means
you visit your friend or your older brother or
even your younger brother or your older sister
or younger sister and they live in
this big ole house, and they got a gate,
woo, you got a gate, hey, can I come in,
it's your brother, and they have to let you
in their gate, you know. Woo, you know. And then you drive home
to wherever you live, and you know what
tranquility is? Tranquility is (sighs)
I'm so happy for them, and it doesn't bother me. I'm so happy for them,
and it doesn't bother me. I'm so happy for her,
doesn't bother me. You got into your grad
school, that's so great, and you got into the
school I wanted to go to, you know what, once upon a
time that would've bothered me so much, I'm not even
sure we could be friends, but I've learned that one
handful with tranquility, of tranquility, is
better than two handfuls of striving and
chasing at the wind. Here's the thing, we
assume more is better, that's what we're
taught every single day. We assume more is better, but chasing more always
leave us wanting more. So here's this point, and
this is why it's so powerful, less is actually more
when the less you hold is what you were created for, that less is actually more
when the less you hold is what you were designed,
what you were created for, what you were born to do. Better one handful
with tranquility than grasping and striving
and pretending and competing. Then he goes on, he says, let
me tell you something else I saw while we're talking
about it, this is so great. Again, he said, I saw something
meaningless under the sun. Well, tell us what is it,
this is fascinating, Solomon, there was a man all alone, he
had neither son nor brother, to which we're like, so what? But, see, in this culture
if you didn't have a son and you didn't have a brother, then you had no one to
leave your estate to and your wealth to or even
if you didn't have much, you didn't have anybody
to leave anything to because in ancient times women
could not inherit anything. So here's a guy who's
been working hard and has something
to show for it, but he doesn't have
anyone to leave it to. And then Solomon says this, there was no end to his toil. In other words he was
just getting after it. Yet his eyes were not
content with his wealth. So he was working hard
and he was getting more, but more leads to more
and bigger leads to bigger and better leads to better, and he's just getting
after it, getting after it, getting after it,
and then he finally, this guy, stops
and asks a question that some of you've never asked. And I'm telling you, I wish
I had asked this question much earlier in my life. In fact, if I could
sit down with you and some of you are 15,
20, 30 years younger, 40 years younger than me, I
don't know how old you are, I would say, you know
what, if you'll begin to ask yourself this
question early on, it will help you, you
will learn to be content with one handful of tranquility, and you won't be content like
you won't accomplish anything, you will accomplish all you
were born to accomplish, but you'll do it with
peace and tranquility. Because here's the question
this guy forgot to ask that most of us forget to ask, here's the question,
it's so powerful, Solomon says he forgot to ask, for whom am I toiling? He finally asked the question, I mean he's been
going on and on and on year after year, and
it's like he's going, wait a minute, who
am I doing this for? Who am I doing this with
and who am I doing this for? What am I trying to prove and who am I trying
to prove it to? Now, this is a hard question, and I had to wrestle this one
to the ground many years ago, it's why I just would love
if we were sitting down over coffee, I would say
this is a really big deal. And the younger you
are, the more powerful and the more time you
have to live this out, but it's never too late. Because there's an
answer to this question whether you've asked
the question or not and whether you know
the answer or not. There's an answer
to the question, why are you doing this? Why are you striving? Why are you toiling? Why are you pushing? Why are you gritting your teeth? Why, who is it for? And for some of you, do
you know who it's for? You're competing
with your brother. You're competing with a sister. Some of you are
trying to live up to your mother's expectations. And let me just
tell you something, I don't know your mother,
but you'll never win with your mother. You won't. You know how I know? Because if you could've
won, you would've won, if it's been going on year
after year after year, and she's this and you're just
trying and trying and trying. Okay, why? Some of you are trying
to please your father, some of you are trying
to make your father smile and finally give you that hug, and some of you, your
father passed away and you're still striving
and you've never stopped and asked this powerful
question, wait a minute, why am I doing this? Who am I doing this for? Whose approval am
I competing for, and do they even know
and do they even care and would it even
matter if they did? So here's a question,
then we're moving on, for whom, to use his word, for whom are you toiling? And let me just
give you a heads up. If you say, well,
I'm doing it for me. Mmm, probably not. Well I'm just doing it for me. Maybe, but before you
just go there and move on, this is a question you need
to wrestle to the ground. For whom are you toiling really? Because for some of
you, when you are able to answer that question,
it will free you up to be content with one
handful of tranquility instead of two hands of if
only, if only, and when. He goes on, and why,
this is so amazing, this is this same fictitious,
this guy that Solomon knew that sort of represents
people, humanity, and why am I depriving
myself of enjoyment? And this guy, Solomon says,
the thing about this guy, he accomplished so much, he
has no one to leave it to, and he's not even
enjoying his stuff, he's so bound up with more
stuff and chasing the wind, it's like, wait a minute,
who am I doing this for and why is it I'm not even
enjoying the fruit of my labor? It's because he'd never
answered the question, why am I doing
this to begin with. And perhaps you aren't
enjoying your life either. And let me tell you what, if
you're not enjoying your life, no one else will, okay? If you're raising kids, if
you're not enjoying your life, they're not enjoying your life. For some of you, and
getting a little personal, the reason that
your relationships are just kind of
repeat, repeat, repeat, same thing, ends the same way, if you're not
enjoying your life, the people that you date
aren't going to enjoy you, they're just not. If you're not
enjoying your life, the people that
are closest to you, your friends, they
won't enjoy you either. They will sense your angst, in fact, they may have
tried to tell you, and you're like, there's
nothing wrong with me, I'm just ambitious,
I'm just a goal setter. Well, no, you're something else, but I can't say that
'cause Andy said don't say everything
that's true, just make sure what
you say is true. So I'm not gonna really
tell you what, anyway, so, and then there's this,
okay, just to really, if you don't feel guilty
enough or motivated enough, I hope you're motivated,
think about this, isn't it true, I don't think
you could argue with this, somewhere in the world tonight there are a billion people, or let's just be conservative, somewhere in the world tonight
are half a billion people that would look at your
life and your circumstances and your body and where
you live and what you drive and who you know, and
they would consider you one of the luckiest
people on Earth. But you don't. And do you know why you don't? Because you don't know
why you're toiling and striving and you don't
know who you're doing it for. One handful with
peace and tranquility is so much better
than two handfuls of grit and tension
and a lack of peace. This too, he says, I
mean he's so honest, this too is meaningless,
it's a miserable business. You will never find, you just
have to trust me on this, or just figure it out for
yourself or think it through, you're smart, you know this, you will never be who
you were born to be as long as you are
looking over your shoulder at anybody else. Because the energy you expend
and the energy I expend looking left and right
and over my shoulder, that is energy God gave us to do what God has called us
and created us to do. And if you're a Christian,
as I said earlier, you'll never discover God's
purpose for your life, you are so aware of
God's purpose perhaps for other people's life,
but you will never discover God's purpose for your life as long as you're distracted
by someone else's success. Now, I grew up, as
some of you know, I grew up with a very
successful father, and in some circles I grew
up with a very famous father. And I had to figure
this out for myself, and I wish I had asked
some of these questions much earlier in my life, and I wish I had learned
one handful of tranquility is so much better than
two hands of striving and chasing after the wind. And I'll tell you somebody
else who had to learn it in a similar way as well, somebody that all
of you've heard of and some of you know
something about him, some of you know virtually
nothing about him, his name's Joel Osteen, right? Joel Osteen's also a pastor. And I love Joel's
story because I'm, maybe it's because
I'm a preacher's kid and he was a preacher's kid, and he said something,
I read his story then, I've only met him one time, and we had one conversation and he was with a group
and he told his story and I wrote something
down, I'm gonna show you what he wrote down
in just a minute. But his story, the 30
second version of his story, is he dropped out of
college and went back home to work for his
dad editing video, his dad was a pastor on TV, and he would edit
his dad's video. So that's what he
did, not an extrovert, introvert, just wanted to
edit video for his daddy, as he calls him, his daddy. And then his daddy got sick
and was put in the hospital, they didn't have anybody
to preach one Sunday, and so his family said,
Joel, you need to preach, and he's like, I don't
preach, I edit video. He'd never preached in his life. They said, no, you
need to preach. And so Joel, so
his dad called him from the hospital he said, and he said, Joel, I just need
you to preach for me Sunday, everybody will love you, you're
my son, they'll understand. He's like, Daddy, I
don't have any sermons. And his dad said, okay
Joel, you just pick one of my sermons that
you really like a lot and just re-preach that. He said two days later I
called my dad in the hospital and said, Dad, I can't
find any of your sermons that I really like a lot. (audience laughs) But he finally picked
one and he preached one, and it was terrible,
just terrible. The next week his
father passed away, and his family came
to him and said, Joel, we think God has
his hand on you, you're to pastor and
preach at this church, and he's like, I preached one
sermon and it was terrible. And Joel talked about how he
tried to preach like his dad. He said, you're not
gonna believe this, he said, I actually
wore my father's shoes for the first few
months that I preached trying to figure this out. And then he said
something I wrote down, and regardless of what
you know about Joel Osteen and regardless of what you
think about Joel Osteen, I don't want you to miss this, because this is so powerful. In fact, this next statement
is why you've heard of Joel Osteen, he
worked for his dad in secret for 17 years. This is what he said. He said, then it dawned on
me, I have to run my race. I can't run my daddy's race
or any other preacher's race. And he's been running
his race ever since. And here's why I tell you
that story, look up here, you have to learn
to run your race and quit chasing the wind. Back to Solomon,
here's what he says, a heart, this is
the entire statement that I gave you the second
part of at the beginning, Solomon says this,
a heart at peace gives life to the body,
but envy rots the bones. You cannot, I don't
care how rich you are, poor you are, how
good looking you are, where you live, who
you're connected to, you cannot compare
your way to peace. You cannot compare
your way to peace. You cannot compare your
way to tranquility. You can't win chasing the wind. God has given you a race to run, and you need to get in your lane and you need to focus and
you need to stay there. Look to other people
for inspiration and celebrate their success, you look to them
for inspiration, but you don't look to
them for imitation. When you see somebody
knocking it out of the park, maybe somebody
living your dream, somebody driving your car,
somebody going to your school getting your degree,
you celebrate them. You say I'm so happy for you, but I am running my race
and I am staying in my lane, I'm not gonna waste an ounce
of my energy resenting you, I'm not gonna waste
an ounce of my life being jealous of you
because I'm running my race in the lane that
God has put me in. Jordan Peterson in 12 Rules
for Life, a fabulous book, he says it this way,
I love this quote, he says, compare yourself
to who you were yesterday, not to who someone
else is today. That is great advice, isn't it? If you've gotta compare,
compare yourself to who you were yesterday, because if who
you were yesterday is not as great as
who you are today, then you're making progress. Compare yourself to yourself, but don't waste your life
and waste your energy comparing yourself
to other people. Count your blessings,
not your neighbor's. You know what, when you
begin counting your blessings and you drop it into the
context of how some people live in this world, you'll
wake up every single day grateful, you'll go to bed
every single night grateful, every single night,
every single morning. You will be grateful
when you start counting your blessings rather
than everybody else's. Here's the thing, please,
'cause you only get one shot, don't miss the life,
don't miss what life, don't miss the life
God has for you, and don't miss what
life has for you. You will never experience, you will never experience
your life fully, You will never experience
your life fully until you embrace what
is right in front of you. I've done it the right way,
I've done it the wrong way. I wish I had learned
this earlier. You can begin today. So, when your emotions
start drifting, when your emotions
start drifting, when your emotions
start drifting, when your emotions
start drifting and start getting the
best of you, you stop, and you just
declare to yourself, I say you declare it out loud, I will not chase the wind, I will run my race in my lane. I will not chase the wind. That's good for you,
congratulations, that's great, I will
not chase the wind. I will run my race in my lane. And if you do, you
will become the person God created you to be. But, if you aren't
willing to take my advice, and if you aren't willing
to take Solomon's advice, and if you're not willing to
take Jordan Peterson's advice, then I think you should at
least take it from Bruce. Find your lane and run in it, because after all,
tramps like us, baby we were born to run. (audience applauds)
