Planning Ahead for the Temptations of the Brave New World

Hello there, this is AD Robles, and you're listening to AD on the Fight Laugh Feast Network.

Alright, well please excuse if I sound a little stuffy, I am not feeling that well, and all of that kind of thing.

But before we begin today, a lot of you have been asking me for an update on my chickens. Just to see how they're doing and all of that kind of stuff, are they surviving the winter, all that kind of stuff.

So let's do a quick chicken update, and let's do that right now. Alright, so I was asked by a number of people to do a chicken update, so here we go.

Alright, it's been a while, but they're doing fine in general. There is one chicken that I was a little concerned about.

And she started, it looked like she started molting. Which, you know, it's like 4 degrees out here, so molting when it's 4 degrees is probably not good.

Let's see if we can see her. Here they are. They're all here, these are all looking good.

It's that one right there. You can see on her back, the feathers are starting to grow back in, but that was bare for a while.

Which, it's cold and I know she needs those to grow. I thought maybe she was being picked on and they were like pulling the feathers from her.

Which apparently can happen in the winter time because they get bored, they don't go outside as much. And they get bored and they start attacking each other.

Because that's how chickens are I guess. But I don't think it really was that. I think she might have actually been doing it herself.

But they grew back fairly quickly, looks like she's warm now. Her neck is still kind of bare, but anyway.

There she is, you can see when she leans down, you can see the pins of the feathers. But other than that, they're doing great.

They eat a lot to keep warm and none of them have frostbite, at least as far as I can tell. And they're still laying a whole lot of eggs.

I heard they slowed down significantly in the winter. These haven't really. So I'm excited about that.

There's my beautiful winter wonderland. And on with the show. Yeah, so as you can see, they're doing pretty good.

The one that was losing its feathers, it looked a little gnarly for a while.

But I had a friend over the other day who knows a lot about chickens and says that sometimes it just happens that way.

And she's looking a lot better now, so that's good. Hopefully she will survive the winter. She's still laying eggs, which is great and all of that kind of thing.

Actually, I did buy them some snacks, some extra treats with a little more protein and stuff. So hopefully that will help the feather and egg production and all of that.

Before we get into the topic today, though, let's say this. If you have not considered doing so, please consider becoming a

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So please consider doing so if you enjoy what we're putting out. Let's jump into the topic today.

So I want to talk about making decisions going forward and relying on experts and getting counsel from people and stuff like that.

Because the Bible is pretty clear that it's good to get advice from people who know better.

And I think one of the things you need to understand is that you as a person have limitations.

I'll give you an example. Sometimes being a profession that requires a lot of intelligence, like a doctor or a professor or something like that, sometimes that can actually hurt you in the big picture.

Because you get this ego where it's like, well, I'm a doctor. And you think that that expertise, that intelligence that you have that you use as a physician, it just carries over everywhere.

You think, oh, you're an expert in finance. You're an expert in this and that. You're an expert in everything.

That's a problem. When you think that you're smarter than you are, that's a very uncomfortable and very not advantageous place to be.

So you're almost better underestimating how smart you are so that you do seek advice from people who know better than you in certain topics.

So having counselors, there's nothing wrong with that. But what I want to encourage all of you is that ultimately you have to make the decisions.

When you talk with a counselor, when you talk to an expert or an advisor or something like that, don't be so dazzled by their expertise that you just kind of give up decision -making to them.

And I've talked about this in a number of different ways. Really where I started thinking about this was during the pandemic because people would be like, what are you?

What are you, a doctor? Like, I'm not going to wear the mask. I'm not going to go. I'm not going to shut down my business.

I'm not going to whatever it is. I'm not going to stop going to church. And they're like, what are you, some kind of a doctor? It's like, no,

I'm not a doctor. But I also have to, like, take control of my own life. Like a doctor doesn't know what's best for me in my particular context, right?

Like if I'm living at the margins, like let's say I can't go a month without work or I can't go a month without engaging in the economy and stuff like that because I just live paycheck to paycheck.

Let's just say that's my situation. I don't want a so -called expert deciding for me that I can't go to work.

Like that's not a good situation to be in. You don't understand my situation. So why don't you?

So I'm not a doctor. That's right. But you're also not me, right? So you've got to take responsibility for your own decisions.

You're not going to have all the facts at all times. You're not going to be an expert in every area. And so you have to understand that you're going to be comfortable with disagreeing with the experts sometimes because you know your situation better than they do.

By the way, this is why central planning and, like, socialism and communism is a horrible idea because deep inside of that system is this assumption that if we just got together the right team of experts, they can make the best decisions for the entire group.

And that's not true. That's not how human beings work. Like no matter how expert you are at a certain field, you're never going to know the unique situations of everybody in the population to make the best decision possible.

You're not God. That's why so many people think that socialism is actually idolatry because you're saying that the state can do what only

God can do. God does have all the information about people, individuals, and their individual situation.

So when God has a command in the scripture, you can be sure that that command is the best possible thing for God's people because he knows how people's minds work.

He knows what is in man. He knows all that stuff that the socialist communist super experts, the little oligarchies that they set up, do not know.

And so that's why central planning and socialism is just a terrible, horrible idea. It's ridiculous to think that people can do that kind of thing, that a human being can figure out or a team of human beings can figure out what the proper living wage is, what the proper minimum wage is.

That's all insanity. God already set the minimum wage. The minimum wage is zero.

That's the minimum wage. You don't work. You don't eat. You know what I mean? That's the minimum wage. But we think we know better.

God's economy, God's system, God's laws of economics, that doesn't make any sense. We've got to set the minimum wage at $15 an hour.

And it's like, well, I know you think that you're really smart and sophisticated and all that kind of stuff, but God's actually already spoken on this issue.

So anyway, that's a side issue. But what I wanted to talk about was I've been talking to a number of people about trying to look into the future and try to weigh out my risks, right?

Because I'm still a fairly young person, and, of course, we never know. We could die tomorrow.

We could die today. We don't know. But I think, given my health situation, given my habits,

I've probably got a significant amount of time left ahead of me, assuming I don't get into an accident or something.

But what I want to do is I want to be able to set up my family from an inheritance perspective, from a wealth perspective, so that I'm protected, as protected as possible.

And so there's a variety of different ways to do that. One way that I was considering doing or I'm still considering doing is investing in real estate and things like that.

And there's different ways to invest in real estate, and there's different ways to make money in that regard. And so I'm kind of weighing them out, weighing the risks, weighing the pros, the cons, and all that kind of stuff.

And one thing I keep considering, and I've gotten a lot of feedback about this, and this is not necessarily the right financial move.

But one thing I am considering is just buying my house outright. So I don't have the cash to do it right away, but I probably will have the cash to do it at some point in the near future.

And so I'm thinking, well, what if I just bought my house? So I paid for – I have a loan on my house right now.

What if I just canceled my mortgage? You know what I mean? And I just own the house outright.

A lot of people say that's a bad idea. A lot of people say that's a bad idea. And I understand their logic, right?

Because financially speaking, the interest rate that I have in my house is very, very low.

The money that I borrowed is very cheap money to borrow. And so if you factor in inflation and appreciation and all these kinds of things, you're going to end up paying dollars for your house today that are worth more today than they will be tomorrow.

So why not keep the mortgage? Why not keep the mortgage and pay them in dollars that are worth less because you've got a locked -in rate.

It's a very low rate and all of that kind of stuff. So why not do that and then keep the mortgage and then invest elsewhere because you can probably make a better return on your money if you invest it now than you will if you pay off the mortgage, right?

Because if you pay off the mortgage, you've got a 3 .5 % interest rate or something like that, 3 .6

% interest rate. And if you pay it off all in one chunk, then that's a very small return compared to what you could get in the market.

So financially speaking, it doesn't make sense. That's true. I agree.

Financially speaking, it doesn't make sense. But what I'm trying to consider is are there other risk factors that I would like to account for that might make it make sense to do something that financially speaking probably doesn't make sense.

And so this is something we all need to understand that we do all the time.

Let me give you an example of something that a lot of people do that makes no financial sense, right? Buying organic food or buying local food from local farmers, right?

It's typically more expensive than the mass -produced food that you get in the grocery store kind of thing.

It's typically more expensive. So financially speaking, you've got an apple from the store or you've got an apple from Farmer John's Orchard in your town.

The apple from Farmer John is going to be very comparable to the apple you get from the grocery store, but it's going to cost a little bit more or a lot more depending on what farm you go to.

So financially speaking, it's stupid to buy one apple over the other, but here's the trick. There's other variables that you need to consider what's important to you, right?

Because to some people, they don't want any GMOs. They think GMOs are bad for the body, right?

I'm not making a comment on GMOs. I don't really know enough about them, right? But for some people, they highly value the idea that Farmer John doesn't genetically modify his trees versus the farm owned by Bill Gates, that creep, is doing all kinds of funny business and Frankenstein stuff with the fruit.

And so they're willing to pay more even though it makes not as much economic sense to get that pure apple, if you know what

I mean, right? So they're considering other variables. They're against GMOs.

They're against whatever it is, pesticide, whatever it is. It doesn't have to be GMOs. And so they're doing something that if you look at the numbers from a pure number perspective, it doesn't make any sense.

So you've got to consider what do you personally value. If you talk to a financial advisor about what to do, they might have something very specific to tell you based on the numbers, right?

But they don't necessarily know your current situation. So you've got to give them some of that information to work with as well.

Because what makes sense financially in an equation might not be the right move depending on what you value.

Let me give you another example. Let's talk about education, right? Education. So last year and this year,

I'm going to be spending quite a bit of money on curriculum materials and other kinds of school materials for my sons because we're homeschooling, right?

And so you could say, well, AD, why would you spend that money?

Because you're also paying for public schools through property taxes. So you're double paying for school.

Why not just send them to the public school? They'll learn how to read and write. They'll learn mathematics. They'll learn about science.

And you're already paying for it. So why would you spend extra? Or you could look at a rich family or something like that that sends their kids to private schools.

That doesn't make financial sense because you can get the similar education for free at the public school.

You live in a nice neighborhood. It's a nice public school. That doesn't make financial sense. And yet rich people send their kids to public school or people like me will spend extra money to do homeschooling.

And the reason they do it is because they have values beyond just what the equation says, right?

Just what the mathematics say on the costs and stuff like that. And so you've got to always consider what are your values, right?

See, to me, when I think about my house, one of the reasons why it's very tempting to just say, well, let's just buy this house outright is

I want to eliminate any temptation for me to not do what needs to be done and say what needs to be said.

Because I'm afraid of not being able to make as big of an income as I'm currently making.

And I don't think I would be in that situation because I do think that I've kind of set my mind and I've kind of resolved in myself to never take the lolly.

You know what I mean? I've resolved in myself to not ever be compromised in that way. But if I'm being honest,

I have to recognize the fact that that temptation when it comes to, you know, my family needs a place to live could be very extreme, depending on how much pressure is applied to me.

I'm trying to mitigate as much cancellation as possible. I work for myself. I've got multiple businesses.

I've got multiple streams of income that I can kind of draw from and things like that. And so it's harder to cancel me, but it's not impossible.

And so I'd be stupid to not think that it would it would at least be tempting to not say something or not act or not do something that I know needs to be done because I need to provide for my family.

And so I'm thinking to myself, OK, financially, I might be doing something that puts me a little bit behind from a wealth building perspective where I ought to be right.

I could probably borrow a lot more money than I did. In fact, when I bought my house, I bought a house at the low end of my price range.

Right. And I'm thanking myself for doing that. Given everything that's happened in 2020, I bought my house right before the pandemic hit.

And man, I was thanking myself for doing that. You know what I mean? So so I value I value my my freedom to speak and say things that I that I think need to be said.

Right. I value the the the the the the reality that it's harder to cancel me given what

I've done. Right. I could probably get a pretty decently paying, you know, full time job somewhere with full benefits and very good stability and stuff like that.

But if I did something like that, it would be very, very easy to cancel me.

And so that might be cushy and comfortable in the short term, but long term, it's risky.

And so I'm trying to weigh that out. And so would I feel a lot stronger and freer if I had a paid for house that the only thing

I had to do is repair costs and property taxes? Yeah, I think

I would. And so I'm strongly considering doing that, even though financially speaking, if I did an equation about the rates of return

I could get elsewhere and stuff like that, I could probably make more money. You'd probably be smarter financially to not do that.

I'm considering it. You know, I've got time, right? Because I don't even have all the money together that I need. But but anyway, that's that's something that I hope encourages you, because I want to talk to experts, right?

I want to talk to financial experts and and this things and any expert in any kind of field.

But ultimately. I have to be I have to be the leader of my house. I have to be the decider, right?

You know, I have to realize that experts in their field are talking about their specific field.

Like I was thinking about this during the coronavirus thing. So like the coronavirus experts, they have a vested interest into making you think this is the most serious thing possible, because that's their whole field.

It's their whole career. All they do is think about these things, right? So so you have to understand, like, maybe they're not fear mongering you on purpose, or maybe they are.

I happen to think that many of them are, but it doesn't matter if they are doing it on purpose or not. They're only looking at it from one perspective.

They're not looking at it from your own personal family's perspective. See, I value the the to I value the opportunity to eliminate any temptations to be a coward as possible.

Because I know deep down when I when I think about who I am as a person, there's a little coward inside there that's ready to come out at a moment's notice.

And he's ready to justify his cowardice in many different ways. And one of the ways that he'll justify his cowardness cowardice is what

I got to provide for my family. And I want to eliminate that temptation as much as obviously I can't eliminate it altogether because I still need to provide food.

I still need to provide transportation, stuff like that. Things happen. My house could burn down.

I mean, I'm not saying this is an impenetrable fortress or anything like that, but but I'm trying to mitigate these things as much as I possibly can.

And I personally think that you might not value the same things that I do at the same levels that I do.

But you do have to consider and figure out what it is you do value when you're deciding how to move forward financially, how to move forward career wise, how to move forward health wise, whatever the situation is.

Everyone's got their own their own things they need to consider when they're talking to advisors or talking to counselors and how to take their advice and how to apply their advice because, you know, your personal situation before God better than most people do.

So I'm not saying don't talk to advisors and counselors. You definitely should. But you need to take responsibility for your own decision making, your own processes, your own situation, because nobody else is accountable for it except for you.

What got me thinking about this today actually was I was talking to my brother about the Dallas Mavericks.

They're not playing the national anthem. I don't care about that. I don't. I just don't care about I can't. I can't.

I can't conjure up feelings or emotions about that. I just can't. But what we were talking about was he was he was wondering to himself,

I wonder if any players are going to push back on that, you know, because that's that's kind of crazy. Like they want to play for a team that's just like, you know, cares about America.

You know what I mean? And I said, no one's going to say anything because lots of those athletes, let's just face it.

Athletes are notorious for this. They're wage slaves. And you might be thinking, how could they be wage slaves?

They're multimillionaires. And I'm like, yeah, they they make multimillions of dollars. But a lot of these guys are living paycheck to paycheck because they're spending multiple steps ahead of what they're making.

You could be living paycheck to paycheck on a thirty thousand dollar salary. You could be living paycheck to paycheck on a three hundred thousand dollar salary.

That has nothing to do with that. If you're living above your means, you're always living paycheck. They're not going to say anything because a lot of these guys are not free men.

They're not free men. They have to not rock the boat because if they rock the boat, they might lose that paycheck and they can't lose that paycheck because they'd be bankrupt if they did.

You see what I'm saying? That's the kind of temptation I'm trying to eliminate for my life. I want to be in a situation where if if the cancel mob comes for me,

I'm not going to be tempted to cave because financially I've set myself up in a way that is as advantageous as possible.

And that's that's me. I'm not saying that has to be you. I'm just saying that when you're talking to experts, whatever field they're coming from, understand that they're there to help you, but you have to decide.

Don't give up your decision making to somebody else. You have to decide you're accountable for yourself before God.

I hope you find that encouraging because it gives you a lot of control. It gives you a lot of responsibility.

Yes, but you're not going to feel like if you have a plan, if you know what you value, if you know what you're aiming for.

Right. I'm aiming for a certain amount of freedom. You know what you're aiming for. You hit what you aim for.

Right. You hit what you aim for. I don't know. Maybe that's maybe that's really the message here. You know, figure out what you're aiming for so that you can hit it.

Anyway, I hope you found this podcast helpful. I'm going to go drink some tea because my throat is killing me right now.

God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the