 I guarantee you, after watching this video, you're gonna be forced to address some things in your life. It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be uncomfortable, but these are the kind of conversations that we need to have in order to progress on our mission as men. So stick with me and push through, you can do it. This is how to ruin your life in four steps. The first way is to indulge in instant gratification all the time. You guys know what I'm talking about already because you've seen content around this topic and yet you've ignored it. You've said, okay, I'm gonna try to cut back on watching pornography or cut back on masturbation or cut back on social media or junk food or whatever that thing is for you or video games. And yet you keep going back, you keep going back, you keep going back, you keep playing into the cycle. Why? Well, we all know why because it's easy because it's comfortable because it lulls us into the sense of just security and okay, everything's fine, like at least I have this. So regardless of what's going on in my life, what kind of disorder and like these insecure feelings that I have or these fears or anxieties or whatever that looks like, I can always turn to these things that I know are going to deliver for me. We turn them into coping mechanisms that we can turn to. I just want you to play this out a little bit here. What are these things doing to you? Well, it's actually teaching you that you don't need to kind of move on or progress in your life or engage in any kind of movement because hey, look, even if my job's a little bit out of whack or my relationships aren't super great, I can just, I can always turn to this stuff that I know is going to make me feel better. You see the coping mechanism there where when we push these things aside, all of a sudden we're forced to actually look at what our life looks like. And some guys, I'm sorry, you're not going to like what you see, but that's where you need to begin. You need to pull back these kind of glasses that kind of make everything okay, like whatever. Like it kind of desensitizes us to our lives because we know we're thinking at the end of the day, oh, at least I can watch pornography, at least I can masturbate, at least I can watch TikTok for three hours because that'll bring me some sense of comfort and peace at the end of the day. So my encouragement to you is cut it off. Do whatever it takes. Let this be the moment where your life changes, where you decide, okay, I know God doesn't want me taking in this stuff. I know God, this is what God wants from me as a man, this isn't who I want to be. So this is the moment where I make a change, where I cut out pornography, where I stop masturbating, where I stop eating just whatever I want to because it feels good in the moment, where I delete those social media apps because they're actually taking up so much of my time where I could be growing closer to God and developing my relationship with him and others like this is your moment. So that's step one, how you ruin your life as you indulge in instant gratification. The second way is you only live for the moment. You're thinking, if it feels good now, do it. If it feels good, do it. No need for goals, no need for dreams, no need for future vision or planning. Proverbs 20 verse four says, this slacker does not plow in autumn. He will seek at harvest and have nothing. So this is a man that just kind of expects his life to produce fruit and produced harvest, but he doesn't do anything about it. And I think a lot of us maybe we have this mentality that hey, I don't really need to worry about the future or focus on the future. And I agree, you shouldn't worry about the future, but there's a place for planning, for being vision oriented and saying, okay, what do I want my life to look like? What are the things that I want to pursue in the direction that I want to be going? You don't have to have everything figured out. That's totally cool. But a man without any kind of plan is just gonna be pulled by the waves of culture and of life. Oh, this seems good at the time or this seems good at the time as opposed to sitting down with wise mentors and figures and people that can provide you with spiritual wisdom and give you advice on where you should be taking your life and you can take that in, you can pray about it, you can continue to let God shape and mold that, but at least you have a mental direction of where you want your life to go. You're not just, well, I'm just here, I'm just living in the moment, that kind of thing. There's a place for being present and also to plan. That is definitely a balance that needs to take place. If you're all about planning and you never kind of enjoy the moment, live in the moment, be present the moment, that's gonna be a really terrible thing for you in your life, you're gonna be miserable. But also if you're only thinking about what's going on now, what's in the present and you're never thinking forward, then you're not setting up the things, you're not planting the seeds, then ultimately you're gonna wanna harvest later on. Step three on how to ruin your life is take on a nihilistic attitude. I don't know if you guys are familiar with nihilism but it's basically this philosophy that the world is just gonna end and it doesn't really matter and so it's kind of meaningless anyway. And I think a lot of us as Christians, we can think, hey, I don't think that way. I know God exists and there's heaven and there's hell and as a Christian, I'm going to heaven one day and I'm trying to live this life for God and all that can be true. But then we can still take on this nihilistic attitude like, well, God's doing his thing and ultimately I'm so small, nothing really matters. What I'm gonna do, I'll just kind of like give it up and whatever and there's just kind of this apathetic approach to our lives, just believing we don't matter or our lives don't matter. And sometimes I can draw us into a sense of despair too. When we look at the world and we say, okay, I can't do anything about this, I can't do anything to change it. And so we just lull ourselves into the sense of despair and apathy but that's gonna ruin your life and it's gonna create this sense of maybe a cynical nature towards life and you don't wanna be that person. Proverbs 17-22, a joyful heart is good medicine but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. If you constantly have a crushed spirit and I understand there's times of mourning and things happen in your life and you gotta be honest and vulnerable about, accepting those emotions but if our constant orientation is towards despair and this kind of crushed spirit because we're letting the influences of the world and maybe our own thoughts take over then we're gonna dry up our bones. We're gonna wither away, we're gonna be useless and it's gonna be miserable. So what we're called to is to find our joy not in just the circumstances of life because they're ever changing but rather in God and who he is and who we are in his sight so that every time I think of God I can think of how beautiful God is, how wonderful he is, how gracious he is in saving me and also who I am in light of his grace. I'm his child. He loves me unconditionally, accepts me by his grace. He will never leave me nor forsake me. This gives me hope and joy to push away that nihilistic attitude. The fourth step to ruining your life is never take responsibility. I think we all know somebody that just kind of constantly blames other people or makes excuses for their actions. Maybe we find ourselves getting caught up in that as well. We make a mistake and we're holding on to this good Christian persona and we say, oh, it was just my bad. I was just a mistake, not a big deal and we don't really take full accountability for it because we're holding so tightly onto our pride. The key here is that we must humble ourselves before God and before others and the key to that as well is to find our security in God. When we're insecure about everything, we'll get defensive when we make a mistake and somebody kind of says, hey, you made a mistake here. We don't, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because we're defending our identity. But if our identity doesn't change regardless of our performance, it doesn't change regardless of how good we are, how bad we are because it's secured in Christ, then we can just be humble and we can just, hey, if somebody comes to me and says, hey, Isaac, you messed up here, I don't need to get defensive and say, oh, no, no, no, because I'm holding so tightly onto my identity, my identity's secured in Christ so I can say, yeah, actually, you're right. I'm sorry, and I can take responsibility for that. I can seek to do better and I don't need to be insecure or defensive about it. Insecure man blames other people to get the attention off himself. I think of Adam in the garden when Eve ate the fruit, right? And he's like, hey, it was this woman that you gave me. So he was blaming not only Eve, his wife, but also God. And as men, I think this is like probably the greatest example of failure as a man is not only not leading your woman into godliness, so not taking leadership there, but also when she falls, you blame her and also you blame God. And that's like, wow, and not only when she falls, when you fall too and you're still blaming her and you're still blaming God, I can't see any clearer picture of failure as a man in the Bible than that. So what do we need to do? We need to take radical responsibility. A lot of other people have talked about this in the men's space. Take responsibility for your life. Jordan Peterson is big on this. Clean your room, begin with the simple things. And I totally agree. But I like to think about it more in a biblical context when God gives us dominion over all creation. I wanna take dominion over my life, over my actions. So I begin with the small behaviors and habits of my daily life. And I'm moving beyond there to see my relationships. How am I taking dominion over how I behave within the relationships that I am? Am I leading well? Am I loving well? Am I being insecure or prideful? So today, this is your opportunity to evaluate the areas of your life where you haven't taken responsibility. This might be a painful process for you because maybe you've blamed other people within the relationships that you've had. You haven't taken responsibility or maybe it's your work life. You've been lazy and you've just kind of blamed circumstances or maybe even blamed God. But today, you take responsibility. That doesn't mean you have everything in control, but what is within your control, you're gonna take responsibility for. I wanna hear from you guys. Which one of these has been the hardest for you in your life that you've fallen into? Let's be open and honest in the comments down below and be an encouragement to one another as we seek to love and lead well. I'd ask you that you share this video with another guy friend of yours that he would subscribe as well and we continue to grow the community. Until next time, keep pursuing the mission.