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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
0:43
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:45
Let's get into it.
0:46
All right, guys.
0:47
Today's episode is called Addicted to Leisure, Addicted to Leisure.
0:51
So I want to kind of flow on something that's been, it's been bugging me for years now.
0:55
So this is going to be a little bit of a rant today, but it's going to be shorter episodes.
0:58
So just bear with me a little bit.
1:00
And so one thing that I do whenever I'm putting podcasts together is I've got a lot of working
1:04
ideas.
1:05
So I have some ideas that, you know, basically, "Nope, this idea is too good.
1:09
I got to put it out there to the guys this week."
1:11
And then others, I just kind of sit on for a while, just kind of marinate and I kind of
1:14
think through it.
1:15
And so I've got a whiteboard at my house.
1:16
And so the two different ways that I kind of take notes on podcasts is I've got kind of
1:20
a running list on my phone of, you know, probably about 50 different podcast ideas for the future
1:25
that I think you guys would enjoy.
1:26
But then ones that are just kind of more pressing on my brain, I'll write them on my whiteboard.
1:32
And one of the ones that I've written on my whiteboard is Addicted to Leisure.
1:35
And that's because I feel like the majority of the people that I've been around, the majority
1:40
of the guys that I've been around are Addicted to Leisure.
1:45
And I talk about guys all the time.
1:46
And I mean, last week's episode, I talked about guys that really like to get after it.
1:50
Guys that like to do jujitsu, guys that like to go climbing, guys that like to do things
1:53
that are very, very difficult.
1:55
But there's not as many of those guys around.
1:57
And we kind of see this play out even in my little small circle that I live in in Edmond
2:03
Oklahoma because the group of guys that are willing to come on Sunday night to do jujitsu
2:08
to do something that's outside of their normal physical activity and certainly outside of
2:13
their level of acumen at that moment versus the number of guys that will go to a Sunday
2:18
school class or the number of guys that will go listen to some speaker or you know, go to
2:23
a men's breakfast in the morning.
2:25
It's kind of a huge swath or a huge difference between those two groups of people, right?
2:32
So I don't think you could say about the guys that come and train on Sunday nights and do
2:36
jujitsu and do a little bit of more of the rough and tumble stuff that these guys are
2:39
addicted to leisure because in their off time, they're choosing to do something that's really,
2:44
really difficult.
2:45
And here's the thing, guys, I love my friends, all of them, the ones that are into the things
2:50
that I'm not as into the ones that are into the exact things that I'm into.
2:54
I love that I've got a wide swath and a big plethora of guys out there that I can kind
2:58
of lean on for their understanding or maybe have an influence in their lives.
3:03
I don't want a whole bunch of guys that are just alpha dog the entire time and everything's
3:07
about being super intense like that, that would get exhausting too, right?
3:10
So I'm not saying that you need to, you know, be looking for one group of friends.
3:14
But the thing about it is, is I've noticed that a lot of guys in my life, they look forward
3:20
to the time where they can sit down and do nothing more than anything else.
3:25
And so specifically, there's a group of guys that I love from college, you know, we've
3:29
done a lot of kind of growing up and maturing together.
3:33
We've seen the bad in each other.
3:35
We've seen the good in each other, but this is a group of guys that, you know, all the
3:38
wives are friends, all the husbands are friends, you know, all the kids are friends.
3:41
It's just kind of one of those situations and the thing about this group of guys is
3:46
as much as I like them, these guys just love to sit around.
3:51
Like they just, they're so obsessed with the idea of at some point in the future, they're
3:57
just going to sit on their butts and drink beer.
4:00
And that's it.
4:01
And there's going to be some activity kind of sprinkled in here or there, but there's
4:05
this overwhelming focus on this ill-defined time in the future when they're just going
4:10
to be able to sit down and relax.
4:12
They're just going to be able to kick back and take it easy.
4:15
And the thing is, is there's obviously great wisdom in taking time and in taking breaks,
4:20
but it's almost like they're addicted to the thought of it.
4:25
And you know, these guys have different kind of craziness in their lives and in their schedules
4:29
and those are things that I completely understand and I can see.
4:33
But again, it's almost like they're addicted to it.
4:36
So I started to ask myself, hey, I really like these guys and I really like a lot of
4:40
different types of people.
4:41
But then I started looking at people that were outside of kind of my group of friends,
4:45
people that I just work with, guys that I work with, guys that I just see at church,
4:49
that I don't even know their names, but I recognize them.
4:51
So I have to kind of give them, though, hey, what's up whenever I see them in public, right?
4:54
And they all seem to have that in common that they just love leisure.
4:58
They love to relax.
5:00
So I, you know, being myself, I try to dig into that like, what's the philosophy behind
5:04
that?
5:05
Like, how did they get to that point?
5:06
Is there something wrong with me that that's not in my top 10 of things that I want to
5:10
be experiencing?
5:11
And so I started to think like, why are we addicted to leisure?
5:16
And so there were a few things that I kind of come up came up with at the time and have
5:20
thought about over time and kind of added to that list.
5:22
But one of the reasons, and this was kind of the easy one, this is your duh reason,
5:26
which is we're just lazy.
5:28
I mean, I mean, really, at the end of the day, we're just lazy dudes.
5:32
And so we do the things in our life that we have to do, right?
5:36
We have to go to work.
5:38
We have to mow the lawn.
5:39
We have to put gas in our car.
5:41
We have to put the kids to bed.
5:43
We have to take them to school.
5:45
We have to do these things.
5:47
But if we don't have to do something else, we're going to choose not to do that.
5:52
If it's not entirely necessary for me to do this thing, that's going to require me
5:56
to sweat or give for some effort.
5:58
I think I'd just rather not.
6:00
So that's kind of one side of it.
6:02
And that's the easy side is, you know, in general, a lot of guys are just really, really
6:05
lazy.
6:06
We're addicted to leisure.
6:08
But then we have other guys that they're just uncreative.
6:12
They're just not creative at all.
6:15
They can't think of things to do with their bodies or with their minds or with where they're
6:21
living or their sphere of influence.
6:23
That would cause them to go do something that required movement.
6:28
There's just not that creative.
6:30
Life is really, really linear for them, right?
6:33
Let's wake up breakfast, truck, work, truck, back home, good to go, right?
6:39
Everything is super straightforward.
6:41
And so for a lot of guys, they just don't really kind of, I guess the best way to say
6:47
it is they don't really like delve into those deeper parts of their brain to see if there's
6:51
other things that they should be doing with their time and their talents.
6:54
They're just uncreative.
6:57
Another reason why I feel like we're addicted to leisure and I'm using we, you know, to
7:00
describe the whole of manhood probably in the United States is we're just content.
7:06
We're just content.
7:08
Things have gone pretty well for a while.
7:11
You know what?
7:12
I don't really want to rock the boat.
7:14
I don't want to do anything that's going to maybe push me or change things or require
7:18
me to adjust my lifestyle or how I'm spending my money or how I'm spending my time.
7:23
You know what?
7:24
We're just content.
7:25
You know, our job, it's kind of driving us insane, but hey, it's a job there are people
7:30
out there without jobs.
7:31
And so we just need to just kind of thank our lucky stars, which obviously is a good
7:34
thing to do.
7:35
But at the same time, it's just, ah, you know what, we're good here.
7:40
And gosh, having that type of a lifestyle leads you to a moment where you can just be
7:45
relaxed and take it easy.
7:48
But another reason I think is because we're scared.
7:51
A lot of us are scared.
7:54
So I talked about this at the end of the last podcast where I was talking about that kind
7:57
of mountaineering backpacking trip that I went on and all the different things that
8:01
went into that.
8:02
And that most guys that I know and a lot of guys that you know, maybe even yourself, you
8:06
just would have never done something like that.
8:10
Because you're scared of being found out, you're scared of being the guy that doesn't
8:14
know what he's doing.
8:15
You're scared of being the guy that's getting embarrassed or you're scared to be in the guy
8:18
that's going to just not have the answers at that exact moment when someone needs an
8:22
answer.
8:24
So a lot of us are scared to do things that are kind of outside of the purview of leisure
8:30
because leisure is pretty straightforward.
8:32
It usually involves a remote in one hand, maybe the phone in the other, your feet up on a
8:37
couch cushion and just kind of veg it, right?
8:41
And there's a time for that.
8:42
Like don't hear me say that that don't like kind of, you know, surmise what I'm saying
8:46
is that you shouldn't do that.
8:47
You shouldn't relax and you know, recharge your batteries.
8:50
And a lot of people, just their entire world is surrounded by the idea of that.
8:55
And part of it is because they're scared.
8:56
But one of the last reasons I thought of is because we're starved for it, which might
9:04
seem a little different than the other four that I've talked about it.
9:06
But here's the awkward reality guys.
9:09
Most of us don't know what to do when we get there.
9:14
There being whatever leisure time or activity we're dealing with.
9:17
We have no freaking clue what to do.
9:21
We don't know what to do because here's the thing that a lot of us have kind of succumbed
9:26
to.
9:27
And I would, I would certainly put myself in that category a lot of times is that being
9:31
busy is a status symbol.
9:35
I don't believe me.
9:36
Just think about the last several times someone ran up to you.
9:39
So maybe it's that church or at work or you just run into somebody at the mall or whatever
9:43
the thing is that you do, Hey, how are things going, John, Oh, you know, we're busy.
9:48
Oh, Jim, how things been going at work lately.
9:51
Oh gosh, we're just so busy because the thing is, is it's the biggest non answer answer
9:56
that you can give anybody as it pertains to that question.
9:59
Because it's not really an answer because they're asking how things are going.
10:04
I mean, they're going well.
10:06
They're not going well.
10:07
Like it's one of those.
10:08
Those would be more appropriate answers, but you just say, ah, busy because wouldn't it
10:13
be weird if you asked that question to somebody and they said, man, I just don't really do
10:17
a whole lot.
10:19
You know, I just kind of float through my day.
10:21
I just kind of, you know, zombie through all the interactions with my family.
10:24
I just kind of do the bare minimum to get by at work so that my boss isn't breathing
10:28
down my neck.
10:29
And then I go to sleep and then I do it all over again tomorrow.
10:33
Like wouldn't that be like a really weird answer to that question?
10:36
Even if somebody were just kind of like, Hey, trying to get a conversation going.
10:39
So they're just asking you how things are.
10:41
So we just say that we're busy because when you're busy, that implies that you're also
10:47
successful because people that are unsuccessful, they're not typically busy being unsuccessful.
10:54
We at least think that, right?
10:56
Because there are outward status symbols, right?
10:58
So what cars people are driving, the watches, they're wearing the shoes, they're wearing,
11:03
you know, the, you know, driveway where they're parking that car in the house it's attached
11:07
to the type of job they have, the vacations they're taking, all those different things
11:11
are kind of external status symbols.
11:14
But when you're actually interacting with someone eyeball to eyeball, you got to come
11:17
up with something else and you don't want to seem like too big of a [inaudible] and say something
11:21
along the lines of gosh, man, I've just, I've closed so many deals lately.
11:24
I literally have more money than I can even fathom what to do with, like I've got a set
11:28
of extra appointments with my CPA just to make sure I'm doing something that's not completely
11:32
ridiculous with my cash, right?
11:35
You don't want to be that person.
11:36
Even if it's true, that would be kind of a [inaudible] thing to say, but at the same time,
11:40
how do you give somebody that idea that you're important, that you have this status that
11:44
they should probably want to, I'm busy.
11:48
I'm busy.
11:50
And so how that relates to what we're talking about today is again, we're starved for leisure
11:56
a lot of times because we do look at our lives and we've basically manifested this
12:02
busy life regardless of if our life needs to be busy and full to the brim and a schedule
12:07
with no breaks.
12:09
We want that almost.
12:12
But the problem is is when we need to charge our batteries, we can't turn it off.
12:17
We can't get off the hamster wheel.
12:19
It becomes a problem for us, right?
12:23
And so we're so starved for leisure that it becomes an addiction because just think about
12:29
it, when you think about an actual addiction, you know, a chemical addiction or some sort
12:34
of addiction because of something going on inside of your brain, inside your brain chemistry,
12:39
these are things that you can't really choose to not do.
12:43
But when someone's addicted to something, it's on their mind.
12:46
It's always on their mind.
12:49
And they can't wait until the next time they can do that thing or take that thing or ingest
12:55
that thing.
12:57
They just can't wait and everything they think about when they have just even a moment's
13:01
downtime in their brain, their brain goes to that place where it was either the last time
13:05
they per took in that lifestyle or the next time they get to, right?
13:11
But the thing about this guys is this is very dangerous for us.
13:16
The idea of being addicted to leisure is dangerous for us and I'm specifically talking
13:22
to the Christian men that are listening to this podcast.
13:26
And the reason why I'm saying it's dangerous is because God did not make us for inaction.
13:32
Let me say that again, God did not make us, he did not make you for inaction.
13:43
He made us for action and there's not a lot of action going down when you're having leisure
13:49
time.
13:50
And again, let me say this one last time so I can get it out of the way, not refer to
13:53
it anymore. I'm not saying that we shouldn't take downtime. I'm not saying that we shouldn't
13:58
have quiet time. I'm not saying that we shouldn't slow everything down and turn everything off
14:03
just so that we can lean into a God's trying to tell us in that moment in that sweet quiet
14:08
moment that we have in our morning or at the end of the day or our own vacation or whatever
14:12
the situation might be. That's not what I'm advocating for.
14:15
What I'm saying is when your entire life revolves around those moments and those times when
14:20
you can just sit around and do nothing. Are those the times in your life that are defining
14:26
you, defining your family and your family name? Are those those times that are kind of defining
14:34
your relationship with the creator of the universe, your dedication and your discipleship
14:40
to Jesus? Is it defining those moments? Because that's the thing guys is when you think back
14:46
in your life and you think back in your career, you think back in your friendships and whatever
14:49
that might be, it's the times of action that you remember. I mean, how many of us look
14:54
back so fondly on the times when we were just doing nothing? Now, I'm even sitting here
15:02
right now. I remember those times right after the difficult workouts or those times when
15:07
I was kind of forced to be away from the television or be away from my laptop or my phone or other
15:12
people. And I got to just sit around and exist in God's world that he created or just in
15:17
something, right? And those are great times. But we don't typically think of those things
15:22
first when we're thinking about the adventure of the life that we're living, right? And kind
15:27
of our place in it. And so it's dangerous for men to worship at the altar of relaxation
15:35
and leisure. Because God's calling us, all of us, including you listening to this right
15:41
now to something better. He's calling us to something that requires something of us. For
15:48
some people, it might be mission work. For some people, it might be, you know, using their
15:52
God-given skills to be able to help a business or help a family or build a shelter or whatever
15:57
that thing might be. And all of those things require action. And let's take it out of the
16:03
realm of physical for a minute. Maybe action requires you to open your yap to have that
16:10
discussion with that friend that's ruining his marriage to have that discussion with
16:14
that coworker who's literally about to ruin the project that you've all been working on
16:18
for the last nine months. Maybe it's an opening up your yap to say, Hey, honey, I've been looking
16:23
at pornography. I've cheated on you. Honey, I've been cheating on the taxes. I've been
16:27
I got a separate bank account or whatever the situation might be. It requires action. But
16:33
a lot of action requires practice. I mean, for a lot of you guys and a lot of you guys
16:38
out there golf. And again, I've told you before, I'm not much of a golfer. But I think it's
16:41
an easy thing here. For most of us, you can't just go out and having not hit a golf ball
16:47
for 10 years, go out and play around of golf and, you know, play somewhere around par.
16:53
It just doesn't work that way. There are certain sports where you where you can just do something
16:58
by accident, you can accidentally make a half court shot. I mean, you can accidentally make
17:02
contact with a slow pit softball. But you can't accidentally be good at hitting a golf ball.
17:08
It just doesn't work consistently over and over. You have to practice that. You have
17:12
to practice action. Because here's the thing about leisure. My friends, you don't have
17:19
to practice that. You just unplug. You just unplug and you go about your date. There's
17:25
no practice involved. Most of you guys don't have to really get ready to have leisure time.
17:32
I mean, some of you guys that, you know, run businesses and you've got payroll and you've
17:35
got a lot of employees. Yeah, you kind of have to plan that. I mean, you can't just disengage
17:40
from your entire life and just go that direction. It doesn't really work out that way. But for
17:45
a lot of you, you just unplug and you're good. You're there. You're at leisure time. You're
17:48
at leisure time wherever you're at in that exact moment. But again, we have to practice
17:53
action. And that's why I encourage you guys all the time to cultivate manly resilience.
18:00
And that's spiritually, mentally, and physically. Physically is one of the easiest ones for
18:05
medium give you suggestions on how to do that. Again, we talked about jujitsu all the time.
18:09
We talked about doing difficult things with your body, not just the same old workouts
18:13
or the same old, you know, bike pass or the same old running, you know, routines or routes
18:18
or whatever the thing might be. It's not just the same old same all it's really push yourself
18:22
at whatever age you are, whatever athletic ability, push yourself five to 10% beyond
18:26
where you're at right now. But it's about practicing action. So you just have to ask
18:32
yourself, guys, are you addicted to leisure? If you're asking yourself, it's am I addicted
18:39
to leisure? And if the answer is yes, the obvious next question is, is that a good thing?
18:48
Is it a good thing that I'm addicted to leisure? Or is it a good thing that I spend so much
18:52
time focusing on the next time I get to have leisure time and relaxation?
18:58
Is that a good thing? Obviously, if you can tell by the last 18 or 19 minutes or so or
19:04
so of this podcast, I don't think it's that great of an idea for you. Again, God made
19:10
us for action, not in action. So let's practice. All right, guys, before we let you out of here,
19:16
we're going to do a quick resilience boost. As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry
19:19
and our mission is cultivating manly resilience. Specifically, we do that by providing content
19:23
that forges spiritual, mental and physical toughness. So today for mental resilience
19:27
boost, we're going to give you this article from the Atlantic. And it is it was written
19:31
a few years ago, but it's basically I'll just give you the title of it. It's a I'm so busy
19:36
a status symbol for our time. So it's a it's a little bit of an article and then it goes
19:40
into this interview with this. I think it's a social psychologist that's been a lot of
19:44
the time kind of thinking about where we used to be as it pertain to our off time. I mean,
19:49
I guess they said like even about during the before the industrial revolution, people
19:53
only worked about 150 days a year. So there was a whole lot more leisure time, whereas
19:58
now leisure time is very limited. Most people are they have their full time job and then
20:03
they also have a side hustle or they got their family, their kids are in all kinds of activities.
20:07
So I thought that was an interesting article that kind of undergirds the stuff that we
20:09
talked about today. Guys, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We really do
20:13
appreciate it. If you would, please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play and Spotify,
20:18
because as of this week, we are on Spotify and be sure to refer your friends to listen
20:22
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20:26
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20:29
leave us one. That is how this podcast is going to continue getting out to different
20:32
guys. I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2019 and the beginning
20:36
of 2020. So if you want me to come speak to your men's event, to your retreat, to your
20:40
team, whatever, hit me up via email info@undaunted.life. Again, that's info@undaunted.life. The website
20:48
is www.undaunted.life and you can follow us on Instagram, and Twitter @undauntedlife or
20:53
facebook.com/undauntedlife. Check out our free devotionals on the Uversion Bible app. Just
20:58
search "undaunted life" under plans. And as always, we want to thank the band August
21:01
Burns Red for allowing us to use their entire music library for our content. The intro out
21:06
to a track on this podcast is our song, King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record
21:09
entitled "Phantom Anthem." The links to all of this are in the description.
21:13
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging
21:19
spiritual, mental and physical toughness, keep seeking the lion of Judah.
21:39
(upbeat music)