Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - The Crossroads of Choice - Navigating Your life and Finding Your Path

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

We are going on a deep dive into the heart of life's pivotal decisions, guided by questions from listeners. The journey begins with a 26-year-old at a career and personal life crossroads, torn between a stable job in Geography and GIS and a longing for military service. This listener's struggle with family expectations and the quest for a more fulfilling path is a dilemma many face. Next, we shift gears to a 23-year-old UPS driver from rural Oregon, living a life many would envy yet feeling the monotonous cycle of each passing day. He contemplates a significant move, chasing his passion for emergency preparedness and exploring opportunities beyond the familiar landscapes of family, job security, and hometown roots. Finally, we tackle a profound and sensitive topic: maintaining humanity amidst conflict. A listener seeks an understanding of how to view the enemy with empathy, avoiding the trap of dehumanizing entire groups based on the actions of a few. Explore and sign up for Starlink Service here: ⁠https://www.starlink.com/residential?referral=RC-14303-34690-52&utm_source=Starlink2MoAndy⁠ **The 2-month free offer will only show in your account after you fully complete your account and activate the service** This offer expires on 12/1/23. Offer available for the United States and Canada only The Speed of War Comic Series: ⁠https://www.thespeedofwar.com/⁠ Sign up for the new G14 newsletter here: ⁠https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/exclusive⁠ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: ⁠https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/⁠

What's going on, everybody? Here we go. Before we get started, it's going to be regularly scheduled programming this Friday. What is up and coming that I can fill you in on? I believe Monday morning's episode of Change Agents is going to be with Peter Berg, an actor, director, specifically, though, talking about OxyContin and his newest Netflix documentary, painkillers, or pain killer, I believe it is. it is an eye-opening. It's not a documentary. I take that back. I use the wrong terms. It's based on a true story. And we talk about it a little bit in the episode as to why he had to go that route.

But I think it's safe to say so he didn't get sued into oblivion by Big Pharma. So that should be out on Monday. A couple days after this, what else is new? Oh, the new cleared hot t-shirt. I'm not going to say it's based on a Waffle House design. I'm not going to say it's not based off of Waffle House design. But just like Waffle House, we're always open. Just like Waffle House, even in a shitstorm.

So I think that's about it. You can just find this. I actually released two shirts. You can find the link at the or just go to the podcast store. I think it's shop.cliardhoppodpodcast.com or it's in my social media bio. That's it. Three questions today. And then kind of a statement or an email that somebody added something to

my thoughts on term limits that I find to be interesting and I'm going to need to think my way through a little bit how it applies to what I think going forward. I still believe in term limits, but I think I'm going to have to refine my thinking and add a little bit to that. So that's it. Let's get into it. Let's get into Fall Out of Friday and then get into our weekend. Here we go. I'm looking at danger close now. All right, we're off. First two questions today I'm going to say are a little bit thematically the same and I'll broadly talk about it and say they're about people search for purpose and meaning and what they do versus who they are and kind of how to deal with other people's thoughts around what you think of yourself and what you want to do and what's important

to you and your life which can be totally challenging depending on the people in your social circle or your life or the people that you value feedback from so let's get into it question I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I'll be 26 in two weeks. I think I got this about two weeks ago, so happy birthday. I went to college, graduated in 21, and got a job in my degree field. I have always wanted to serve in the military. I am in the initial process of joining the National Guard after this weekend of dealing with my family and being the butt end of jokes and in a roundabout way, got told that I am stupid for getting my degree in geography and GIS making maps, in parentheses, as you said.

and I am now thinking it would be better for me to go active duty, get away from the area I grew up, and to be away from my family for a while. The thing is, I make a decent amount of money, and the only debt I have is my car, so career-wise, it appears I am kicking ass on paper. That being said, I do hate my current job. I'm not able to help people, and I feel like I am leaving a lot on the table if I just work an office job. I feel a higher calling that I'd more than just sitting in an office and making my only focus me. That's all I have done since I graduated high school. So I am stuck between going to the National Guard and being a weekend warrior or going active in pissing my entire family off and basically cutting ties with everyone and everything that I know. A weird shift in my life for sure.

I was hoping for your thoughts on this one. I feel as if I have been betrayed by my family after I've done so much for them. I love them to death, but they still treat me like I am a 12-year-old kid. Kind of a lot in here in this one. I'm going to try to parcel it up a little bit. I'm going to start with something you said in your email, and it was about the National Guard, being a weekend warrior. I don't know a lot about the National Guard. I know that actually I get a little hazy here.

If it's the National Guard or the Reserves, but one weekend, a month, two weeks a year. That might be the reserves. Either way, whether it be the reserves or the guard, I'd be really cautious saying things like you're going to be a weekend warrior. I would suggest that you do a little bit of research onto how involved the National Guard was in the global war on terror, especially at the peak kinetic time periods where there was an active war zone in two countries. And what you're going to find is they were doing some of the most difficult and some of the longest deployments of any military. unit. So to even refer to them in any way as a weekend warrior is something that I would caution you against. In perfect peacetime, again, I don't know a whole lot about their structure or what is required. Sure, perhaps you might only be working occasionally on the weekends or drilling or training, but if you don't think in a heartbeat that you could be called back to

not necessarily full active duty status, but activated and expected and demanded to do the role of an active duty soldier, you are lying to yourself. So be careful the way that you talk about it. Do a little bit of research and make sure that you know what you're getting into when it comes to the guard versus active duty route. I know a lot of guard people that have equal to, if not more deployment time than active duty people. So I'll start there. You love your family to death and they still treat you like a 12 year old. I can understand that. Your family is your family. You don't have any choice in the family that you are born into. But if they are consistently treating you like shit, my question to you would be, why do you love them to death?

If I were to give you two choices. One of them is your nuclear family that treats you like shit. And let's say it's a four person, four family member, four person family member group. And I'm just picking that for ease of numbers. Obviously, you know, there's extended family and all those things. But you have four people that you have a genetic tie to from your DNA and your bloodline. And they treat you like absolute shit. And then you have another four people that maybe you grew up with in your social circle and you grew up together, you evolved together. And they care about you deeply. They listen to the things that you say. They are concerned about the things that concern you. They listen to your goals. They're there to be

supportive of your goals. They tell you the truth and they give you the feedback that you need, but they essentially treat you completely differently than your biological family. And you love being around them. It's a supportive environment. Which one would you choose? If I were to strip away the description of the social circle for people or the family for people, if I just describe the two environments that you got to choose from, which one would you pick? I think most people would obviously go with the one that is supportive, caring, and actually loving, not demeaning, and that doesn't treat you like a 12-year-old. So that begs the question. What is family? Is it the blood that runs through our veins? Yes, obviously, of course,

that is the definition of family, the genetic ties that we have. But why are we so willing to tolerate behavior from people that share our bloodline when you would never tolerate it from somebody else. And I don't have an answer to that question. And I only say that because maybe you need to shift what you think family means for you. Those people can always be in your genetic family. But if they're treating you like shit, you're under no obligation to love them to death or to interface or interact with them. You are going to have to choose to control the only thing that you can control, which is yourself. And by that in this situation, who you choose to spend your time with. if they're not helping you move your life in the right direction.

One, ask yourself why. And then two, ask yourself why you're tolerating that. Way easier said than none. I totally understand that. But it is fascinating to me how people will just tolerate the absolute worst of behavior from somebody because genetically they are tied. And they would never give that person the time of day. And I get to a degree, I get it.

They raised you, depending on the situation who it may be in your family. There's a bunch of time around you. I understand the temptation to just say, ah, it's family. You know, what are you going to do? Well, one of the things you can do is control how much time that you spend in that environment. And I'm not saying cut your family out of your life, but maybe take a little bit more of a controlling hand and how much you allow them to spend time or monopolize your time.

to the top. You've always wanted to serve the military. Okay. If you want to serve in the military, my suggestion to you is this. Go serve in the military. It sounds like you've already gone to college, so you have a degree. You're probably going to have a choice between enlisted and officer, and that's a fantastic choice. Pros and cons to both career field, depending on what you want to do in the military. But it's great to have those options. Go talk to a recruiter and see what life would actually be like, depending on you didn't give me anything else other than you wanted to be in the military, so I don't know what branch, I don't know what occupation, and I don't know enlisted versus officer. But it sounds like you're an educated person, and you're probably going to have

available options in any military branch and probably a lot of occupational choices as well. So go explore them. That doesn't mean you have to go do anything with it, but just educate yourself as to what is actually possible. You know, your family thinks or is telling you that you're stupid but for getting your degree in geography and GIS, which I don't know what that means. And I'm glad you put up there that it's basically making maps. But who gives a fuck what they think? If you enjoy your job, which unfortunately you said that you do hate your current job, change it.

I mean, this sunken cost fallacy where, well, I've gone down this path, so now I have to keep going down this path because of all the time I've invested. It's, I get it. It's a sticky idea. It sticks with people and it sometimes doesn't make them do anything. It sometimes gets them into a place where they make decisions that are not in the long-term best interest for themselves. But if you were to make a career change, I mean, make it earlier rather than later. Do you want to be feeling the exact same way five years from now or 10 years from now where you really can talk yourself into a corner and say, well, I've been doing it this long and maybe you have a retirement that's tied to your occupations.

or the job that you currently have and, well, I'm closer to getting that retirement than I am to leaving. So I can't, you know, I can't risk it now. It sounds to me at the age of 26, like you're in a place where you can make some massive shifts in your life. And the only thing holding you back is you. You know, if you do go to the military, it's going to provide that that break for you to get away from your family, at least for the basic training portion. I have no idea where you are in the world or in the U.S. So who knows what duty stations may be possible around you. Maybe the answer is none of them. But what you might find when you go into the military is a different kind of family that treats you way better that is there for a shared sense of purpose and a

shared sense of interest. And you can support each other and be supportive of each other and have the exact opposite experiences that it sounds like you're having when you spend time with your family. So I throw all of that out there just to say you have choices. You have a lot of choices. and the only thing holding you back right now is your unwillingness to either educate yourself about those choices or pursue them. So it's easy to point at your family and it's easy to point in your job. But I would say instead of doing that, just go take a look in the mirror and determine who you want to be and what kind of person you want to be and make some choices based off of that.

I have a feeling if you left your current job and you drastically made a life change. whether it's military or another occupation you wanted to pursue, and it didn't work out, you could always fall back on the job you previously had. Maybe not with the same company, but if you have a degree in that particular field, you're going to be employable. So you're at a phase in your life where you're young, you had a lot of runway in front of you, you have a lot of opportunity to just turn the steering wheel in the car of your life as drastically and as hard as you want to. I wouldn't give you the same advice if you were double your age, 52, or probably not even if you were 45. I certainly would tell you, I would say a lot of the same things and at least educate yourself on the options that are available for you.

But the closer you are to the beginning of the race versus the closer you are to the end of the race determines how aggressive you can be with the choices that you make. And you're in a great spot right now. Get crazy. Get wild. Don't gamble. But take some risks. Figure out what you want to do and say, fuck it and go do it. And if it doesn't work out, that's okay. And if it's not perfect, that's also

okay. So spend some time with yourself and figure out what you want to do. And my advice is don't say shit to your family. Because if you think the feedback is going to be negative, what's the point of explaining to them something that you're passionate about? If you know what the response is going to be, especially if you think that they have the ability to talk you out of it. make the decision yourself. You're the only one that has the opportunity to decide where your life goes. And don't surrender that to anybody else. So hopefully that helps. Question number two, like I said, these are a little bit thematically the same. But I think it's important. As I've said many times, when I get a bunch of emails that are similar in theme or nature, for whatever reason, I think there's, you know, maybe it's just whatever people are dealing with.

Sometimes it's a seasonal shift, whatever it is. But it's like, huh, a couple of these that are like this. let's take the time to answer them so number two i've been a long time listener to the podcast and the honesty sincerity and comedy each of of and each one shines a positive light on the modern media and the way most people view the world i thank you and i appreciate that not necessarily what i'm trying to do my guiding principle is to just be myself and uh i know that's not for everybody i know some of the things that i say and some of the ways that i say them it's not right for everyone, but we live in a world of choices and people can choose to tune in or tune out. That is their call. I had a question that I just wanted your personal opinion on, so I'll be quick. I'm 23,

and I was born and raised in rural eastern Oregon. I have a great job as a UPS driver. Shout out to UPS. Thank you guys for making sure I get the things that I order and I feel really bad for you because I know for about the next six weeks you guys are going to get absolutely decimated. So you're UPS driver. You have an amazing girlfriend that puts up with all your bullshit. You have a nice affordable rental house, the truck you've always wanted, and a great family that are all close. So, shit, a little bit of a different intro into the situation that this person is dealing with versus the first question. I have almost everything I could ask for, but I still feel like every day is just a repeat of the day before. I've always been the guy that has the jumper cables in the truck or a pair of tweezers to pull a splinter. I love and want to help people become more prepared for everyday things like being stuck in the snow to medical emergencies.

The types of things your pal Mike Glover teaches over in Utah. There isn't anything in that line of work anywhere close to my small town of 16,000. I've been considering moving out of Oregon just from the political climate alone, but also to get somewhere close that has more opportunities. Perhaps Idaho, Montana, and Utah. Me and my girlfriend's family is all located here. and we have a ranch in land that I will someday be a partial owner in. I have a good job currently with great pay and benefits. Should I look into moving and get into a career I love to do?

Or should I stay with my friends and family that I've grown up with my entire life and keep the good job I have? Any advice you can give is helpful. Thank you for helping the Monday and Friday of every week go by a little faster. Also, Stephen Seagall can eat dog shit. I completely agree. Let's start with the end of that sentence or the end of the email. I agree with you, sir.

He can go eat dog shit. He's a terrible human being and for people out there who ask me why I hate him, do a little bit of Google research on the man and his loose relationship with the truth and his treatment of women. And I think you might find yourself landing in the same category of people who think the way I do about Stephen Seagall. So like I said, your email, the preface of your email is different than the first email, because you're going to be a very email because. because the situation that you are living in right now sounds described by you to be much better, much more supportive, perhaps even a little bit more fulfilling to a degree. And that's an awesome thing. But you have presented me with a binary choice to choose from. And I just don't think that real life has to be binary. I think we try to reduce it to being binary. I have to do either

this or I have to do that because maybe it's easy for us to process things in that way. But in my experience, binary, man-made binary solutions and options don't work well often. So I'm not an expert on UPS, but you have a great job at UPS. And from the people I know who work for UPS, it's a very good company to work for, the benefits and pay. And I believe there's a union involved when it comes to the drivers as well. I have heard those things are very good. and that there is an opportunity to grow inside of that organization.

If I'm speaking, again, I'm speaking from second or third hand from people that I know who are actually UPS drivers. If I'm mistaken about those things, that's my fault in conveying that information from what I have heard. But that's the position that I'm going to be answering or my thoughts on it or what I believe. That's where I'm going to be answering this question from. You know, the fact that you want to help people prepare themselves for what could potentially happen to them, I also think is fantastic. And it's kind of diametrically opposed to your current job unless you are delivering them things that allow them to be more prepared, which would be a cool combination of the two. But the binary choice of stay with UPS or move out of the state and try something new, I don't think is very accurate. From what I understand with UPS, you should have the ability to look at other places that UPS has jobs similar to yours. And I suspect if you do, you would have the ability to laterally transfer to one of those locations. And the reason I say that in that way is you have time outside of what you're doing with UPS where you could develop a business

that focuses on your desire to help prepare people for the unknown. And maybe that would start with you interning or working for another organization that already has that infrastructure in place and already does that. Or maybe it just starts with you using your off time in a different location where you can keep the same job and just lateral over and build those things in your off time. Whether that is educating yourself more or using your off time to go to professional development courses, understanding product development, interfacing people with people in that space by going to events, building an online presence yourself in that particular

category and space outside of your UPS job. I just feel like that you could do both. And if you want to lift and shift out of Oregon, which I have almost no experience in eastern rural Oregon other than driving through it. So I can't speak to the political climate about it at all. Find somewhere cool. I mean, between Idaho, Montana, and Utah, I feel like you'd be able to find another job inside of UPS as a driver. I see them every day all over the place driving around. And I don't know how full they might be from an employment perspective.

But I think you would have the chance to do that. So you could maintain your job and any benefits that come with that, still being able to provide for your girlfriend if she wanted to come with you and have the things that you want. And then focus in your off time on building the other things. And maybe it gets to a place where you could build one. And it's just this competition of, I'm starting here with UPS. This is the value that it provides. And then your own personal occupation where it starts to. And then maybe one day they're equal or they're close.

And you can see the light at the end of the tunnel where they're going to match themselves over. or maybe it exceeds it rapidly, and then your decision becomes much easier. I would suggest doing it in that route versus burning the boats. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That is just a little bit riskier, but I'll say the same thing to you that I said to the previous person who emailed in. You're 23. You can take more risks than the 26-year-old. I'm not saying go crazy, and I'm certainly saying don't gamble.

But you could take more risks than the 26-year-old. I mean, fractionally, of course, because you're not. You're both, in my opinion, at a place where you can go pretty damn wild with the choices that you make. But you can jump both feet into that bucket of a survival company, for lack of a better term, or educational company. However, you would describe it. There's nothing wrong with that. But if it doesn't work out, you may have set yourself backwards a little bit. Maybe it's financially or professionally.

So just do both. you know, every day feeling like it's a repeat of the day before. God, I so deeply understand what that feels like. I know exactly what that feels like from a variety of the jobs that I have worked throughout the course of my life. I totally understand. And I don't think that every job that you have is supposed to fulfill the whole in everyone's life that is known as purpose. It's okay to have a job that pays your bills because you have to be able to. to survive before you're going to be able to thrive. And I don't know a lot of people.

There are, of course, edge cases, you know, or I don't know if it's, is it a white elephant or a black elephant, whatever it may be, that, that example of somebody who risked it all and the one out of countless people that was able to just turn into the shooting star that can be used as an example for everybody else. I'm not saying it's impossible, but for most people, the first thing you have to do is meet your monetary requirement to survive. And not every job is designed to fulfill purpose. I still don't know what my purpose in life is. I know the things that I like to do. I know the things that feel rewarding for me. But as far as, if you ask me to write out, what is my purpose in life? Broadly, I think I would say to try to make the world around me

specifically at least a little bit better than the world that I came into. Like it's on my way out, it's at least a little bit better than it was on my way in. That's probably what I would define it as right now. But I just turned 46 and I'm barely able to describe that. So I am double your age and still ask myself those questions. And I still reevaluate the things that I'm doing based off of that criteria. And not everything I do feels purposeful. And that's okay because I have rent. I have a car payment. I have an electricity bill, a water bill, a studio bill, all of these things. You have to meet those criteria before you're going to be able to devote the time to chasing your purpose. And that's okay. Not everything in life is a hallmark movie. I hope everybody's life has moments that are. But if you think the entire lap around the track is going to be like that, devoid of suffering and struggling and trying to figure out and navigate your way,

with limited visibility where it looks like you're diving an oatmeal and can't figure out which direction you're going. And my personal belief, I think you're lying to yourself if you think it's not going to be like that at some times. So do what you can. You have a great foundation. You have a supportive family. You have a girlfriend. And I'm glad you have the truck that you have always wanted. I'm fascinated to know what that truck would be. I'm guessing it's a lifted F450 with like a 13 inch lift and you need a collapsible ladder to get inside of it. And I have no idea why that's what I think it is, but that's just what I came up with in the real time.

So look at other options between this binary. It's all this or all that. I suspect you'll be able to find a beautiful blend of the two and really start putting some time and energy and focus in your off time into those things that you've identified that you love. And hopefully at some point, very soon, that value proposition will shift.

But if it's not very soon, don't give up on it. If it's still rewarding for you and you still love it, give it as much time as it needs to develop to a place where that's what you can do for a living and live what you would consider to be a little bit more of a purposeful life. Number three, with your previous career in mind, and this is drastically shifting gears, how did you balance seeing the humanity in your enemies and their supporters and making your peace about dispatching them? It seems like it's pretty easy for most people to slip into seeing a group as no longer human when something awful happens.

I get it. It can be a spiteful bitch and would harbor no guilt on my soul if someone suddenly may be the head of the pedophile executions. But this is directed at specific individuals. How do you stop yourself from seeing an entire group, whether it be religious, ethnic, or otherwise, as something other because of the actions of some people that are in that group? I find myself taking a lot of sideways looks and head-shaking when I simply try to sympathize with the humanity of the innocent people stuck in the middle of the current iteration of Arab-Israel conflict. Invariably, people want to vilify the entirety of the whole, and it seems like from there it doesn't seem like a long drive to justifying ethnic cleansing. man what a short simple and very powerful question and i'm not an academic by any stretch i'm going to try to keep my answer to this as simple as possible i agree with you that it

becomes very easy to try to lump everybody into one group and if you can do that you can vilify the entire group or it seems easier to not that you would have to but it seems easier to for people. And I'm going to tie this back into talking about family. There are people out there I know who have what would be, what would appear to be externally, like the perfect family, supporting and loving. And it's just, it's this amazing nucleus of love and support. And in my own family, the vast majority of my family is exactly that. You go back a couple generations and what you find in my own family, specifically my grandfather is an individual that was out of his fucking mind and ended up disowning my own father and treating myself and my sister in a way that I'll just

describe as not being very appreciated. And I think if you go and look at your own family, for everybody listening to this, I bet you you can find an example of somebody in your family, whether it is close personal family or extended family, that's a little bit off the fucking rails. And the reason that you can do that is that we're people and people can't be perfect. It is impossible for a group of people to be perfect. And the larger that number of group, that number of people becomes, to me, the more impossible it is to even approximate perfection. So it'd be easy for me to look at my own family and be like, you know what? My grandfather was a fucking selfish, narcissistic asshole who treated his son and his grandkids,

not always, but often enough like shit to the point where contact was broken. And it's not that much of a leap in logic for somebody to say, you know what? If that's what family is, then just fuck family. I'm going to be out on my own because I'm not going to deal with any of that. And that would be a mistake because the issue wasn't my family. The issue was my grandfather. He fucking sucked. And if he was still alive today, I would say that to him.

He died many years ago. And he died when I, my last contact was him, I believe was before I was a teenager. And I wasn't in a place to be able to describe how I felt or even actually understand what was really going on, if I'm being honest. But it's not worth it for me to write off family. family. And it helps me to remember when I look at large groups, whether it is religion or the military, or politicians, or law enforcement, or just keep filling in the blank for yourself, any large group of people. It helps me and grounds me when I can think about my own family and the behavior of individuals that should have your best interests in mind and should care about you incredibly deeply and should be the opposite of being selfish and narcissistic and should treat you well at all times. But they don't. Is that a failure in family?

No. It's a failure in a person being a person. and that happens in any of the groups. There are fantastic examples of both Arabs and Israelis. And then there are examples of edge cases in both of those communities and every other community of people acting so horrendously bad that the potato peeler option seems very reasonable to me. So what I try to do, sorry, and answering your question, is I do my best to separate the human behavior of individuals from my judgment of a group as a whole, because that's

what I have to do with my own family. I have to view my grandfather's actions and the way he treated my family as exactly that, not as how families, all families treat. other because that's not the case we're talking about human beings human beings are exceptionally flawed and i see this you know i see this with the political environment let me just tell you right now what i am not looking forward to is this 2024 full speed ahead election campaign that is at this point less than two months away from really kicking off i'm not looking to it because even in the united states it's this desire left and right let's just define people by the these super binary groups, and we're going to judge everybody who has a belief that trends in this

direction in a certain way, and everybody who has a belief in this direction a certain way. And what I can say is I have very good friends who are very liberal in the vast majority of their beliefs. And I have very good friends who are very conservative in the vast majority of their beliefs. I don't think I have any friends mostly because extremism in any way, makes me uncomfortable, I don't really think I have any friends or social, even social acquaintances that are on the far end of either political spectrum. It makes me uncomfortable when people get that dogmatic about their beliefs and start suspending reality or trying to bend reality to justify their belief on either side. And that doesn't mean I hate liberalism or conservatism,

though. It doesn't even mean that I like liberalism or conservatism, even though those individuals would tell you that those are the true purest belief of either of those things. I look at it as the individual, and I judge the individual on their not beliefs, their actions and their behaviors. Believe what you want. How you interact and interface with the world and the people around you, I care far more than your actual belief itself. So I'm not going to throw out anybody on the left or the right or judge a whole group, whether you're left, right or damn near in the center, because I expect there to be fringe cases because we're people. And some people are fucking crazy. Some people are out of their mind. Some people are chemically imbalanced. Some people

had horrendous upbringings and will latch onto the only idea that they have ever found that they think allows them to make sense of the world that they live in. And that's okay. It's not if they try to destroy the world around them because of their beliefs, but I'm not going to label anybody who is left or right of center based off of the fringe activities of a few people, or even a moderate or moderately large group of people inside of that, because I expect it out of humanity. You specifically asked, you know, how do I balance seeing the humanity in your enemies and their supporters and making peace about dispatching them or killing them? It's not that hard. The actions that I took overseas, oftentimes I had had maybe a quarter of a second to make a decision. And the people were acting on their beliefs. They were acting on their beliefs by fighting for their beliefs. But my go-no-go criteria is what was presented to me and the actions that they took. They took a violent and aggressive action or a posture towards me. Do everything I can to wipe them off the face of the planet. And that's not, you know, I can still see the humanity and everything and their

probably a son or a daughter or a father or a husband or a sister or a brother. I understand that. But in the moment when it came to making my decision based off the information I had presented to me, I didn't have time to think about that. How do I later in life balancing the humanity? One, and I've said this many times, I appreciate their willingness to fight for what they believe. A lot of people want to scream about what they believe and they want to use the internet to present themselves as a warrior for their beliefs, but they would never actually physically risk their life or fight for it. And I'm not putting a value judgment on that, but I deeply respect somebody who's willing to actually fight. And it doesn't always have to be like a fist fight, but I mean actually engage beyond the environment of the ether of the internet in what they believe. Now, regardless of what you believe, there's somebody out there who disagrees with you.

I'm sorry, that's just the way that it is. There's X and Y people in every letter of the alphabet. You have an access out there to whatever your belief is. The vast majority of those will just disagree with you at a conceptual level, and you will both live your life in harmony, and they would ever take action against you. You start getting to the fringe cases of that, and then there are people who would want to kill you for your beliefs. And whether or not people listening to this believe that's the case or not, that's not for me to try to change your mind, but what I can tell you is this. I've looked into the whites of the eyes of people who disagree at an extreme level with what I believe in, the freedoms

that I believe in, and what human beings should have the rights and opportunities to be able to do. And in my experience, which is all that it counts for, is there's no way to educate people out of that position. And when you encounter somebody and look into the whites of their eyes, and they are your access, and they are at the extreme level and they want to impose their beliefs and will on the world by eradicating everybody else that disagrees with what they believe in, well, you have a choice. You could either adopt what they believe in, yourself, be destroyed or destroy them. I mean, people listen to the podcast who know who I am, they will understand where I fall into that. And that's the extreme, though.

Those are the extremes. And even those people are family members. And I'm sure that they have loved ones and their sons and daughters and sisters and all of those things. And I see, I recognize them as human. And I recognize that maybe in other areas their humanity shine through or shone. or shone through. It would be shine through, I think it would be, that humanity expressed itself in a different way.

But it wasn't possible for that to happen in the moments that I encountered them. And my choices were limited. So I don't feel bad about the actions that I took because I didn't have any other options at the time. I know who I am. I know who, I know what. I believe in. I know what I stand for. And I am willing to fight for that. I think the easiest way to

describe how I've been able to make peace with it is because it's not that I was ignoring the humanity of who they were. In my mind, they were and are the worst expression of what human beings can be. And they pose a risk and threat to the rest of humanity. even though they may be brothers, sisters, fathers, husbands, sons, and daughters. I don't know if that makes sense, but at least in real time in this moment, that's the best way that I can describe it. So hopefully that helps. And again, I try to balance and ground myself when looking at any group of people. That perfection isn't possible. And we shouldn't expect it to be. and I'm also very careful allowing the actions of a few to paint an entire picture for the many.

All right, last thing for today, and I'm just going to read this out and maybe commented on it for a bit, but this is something I'll be thinking about in the future. So, excuse me, enjoy listening to you, appreciate your humility, thoughtfulness, and sharp tongue. Just heard your thoughts on term limits recently and wanted to add a frustrating wrinkle to your thinking process. term limits on elected officials alone is a key element. The non-elected staff. California is a great case study. I lobby California several years ago, and while I don't remember the exact details, there were term limits for elected officials.

In short, what ended up happening was that non-elected staff were the true policymakers, the true people with power. There were staff, employees, technically of the elected officials, who would bounce from one elected official to another, as they termed out. The not-elected staff can have an entire career in the legislative body. They knew how to navigate the system. They had the relationships, et cetera. In many, but not all instances, it was more important to know a long-tenured staff serving a committee or a part of the state than it was to know the currently elected person in position. I agree 100% that our system

needs to change, and I thought you might appreciate this nuance. I'm sure that Dan Crenshaw could share his experience with long-tenured staff in the U.S. Congress. Anyone elected to the legislature in California could provide even more context. Thanks for putting out thought-provoking and entertaining content and your continued service to others. So this is an interesting one. And please let me know your thoughts about this one in the comments because I agree there's an issue there. If we are voting for an elected official, but they're just a figurehead and the people who are really making the decisions behind the scenes, we don't get the opportunity to vote for. because behind the scenes, they are staying for as long as they want, and then so therefore nothing changes.

We have a problem on our hands. And I don't know the answer to that. I mean, perhaps it's as simple as applying term limits to those type of roles as well. But I'm curious as to your thoughts, because this one definitely is thought-provoking for me. And it's something I'll be putting some thought into in the near future. That's it for Friday. See you guys on Monday.