Guy Reams (00:01.57)
This is day 99. You receive what you have faith in.
You know, a wise person once told me when I was younger that people that believe in a certain practice, a certain religious faith will get exactly what they believe in. And I never really understood this comment, but it seemed profound to me at the time. And I've oftentimes reflected on it. If you imagine that people
that have a religious faith, if they actually got what they believed in, it kind of, it makes sense out of a lot of things. And if you think about it, if you really think about it, that statement is actually true. And I know that's a little controversial because that would be admitting that that would be kind of admitting that potentially all religious faiths have have truth or have some power based on the faith exercise.
Which is an interesting concept of in itself. People don't like that because it borderlines on the on the relativist idea that things are relative to the person and therefore is each individual person has their own perspective in their own reality.
Most religious people will not accept that fact. They'll say that there is one truth, a dedicated truth, a separate truth that stands on its own. But that's a philosophical argument. That's not the point of what I wanted to talk about. But I did think that was a very wise thing to say, because if you think about where you spend your time and energy, where you spend your money, where you focus yourself,
Guy Reams (01:53.815)
that has a big impact on your life. So what you choose to associate with will impact you. And in the case of a religious belief or a group you belong to or an organization you join, a club you join, no matter what, or a job you get hired at, that will have an impact on you. The culture, the practices, the belief systems, the values, those will all have an impact on you.
So choose why and so really what this person meant was you need to choose wisely. Pick carefully what you decide to have faith in because that will have a great influence on you. It may not actually be the total belief, the explicit promise of that religion may not actually come true. I don't know. But the point is, is that it will that it will impact you. You will become what it is that you believe in.
So that was kind of the concept. And that has played on me a little bit because I've oftentimes thought about the difference between faith and belief. And I'm not talking about this from a religious perspective. So bear with me. I'll get past the religious concept. But the reason I bring up religion on this is because it's so applicable. Many of us have been raised in a religious tradition or are part of a religious tradition. So this will make sense.
There are people that believe in something and then there are people that have faith in something. And I think there's a big difference. I've noticed that people that believe don't necessarily take action, but those that have faith are the ones that take action, right? So I think there's a clear difference between this concept of faith and this concept of belief. So now all religions teach some element of this, but the Bible, specifically the New Testament, is
full of ideas around this where Jesus taught through parable this power of an individual, a person, a single person to put faith into something and to receive, right? Basically, he used analogies like a door, like you can knock and you will receive. The parable of the mustard seed, where if you put just a little bit of faith in a very teeny small seed, it'll grow into a big tree. Or the parable of the fig tree.
Guy Reams (04:19.191)
which is there's a space given to us a period of time in which we can exercise faith and do what we want. And there will come a time when it will be determined if that fig tree produced fruit or not. So there's this idea that we have the power to exercise faith in something and we have the power to receive a reward if we have faith in it. That is very much part of the Christian faith. It seems like we lose sight of this from time to time because some people think you just have to believe blindly.
But that's never been the case. It's always been to seek and find.
This idea that if you put faith in something, you will get it is an absolute truth. And this is not a religious truth. This is just a universal human truth. will always, humans always will put effort into something to gain benefit. That may sound like a selfish thing, like we're selfish, but humans are selfish. Our entire being is around self-preservation.
We were built and designed to preserve self. The reason why we form societies and social contract with each other is so that we can benefit ourselves. We're creating compromises with other humans so that we can all work together so that I can get more as a person, so that I can take care of things that I need, such as food and shelter and all those types and safety. So everything we do as a human is to gain some benefit.
When you wake up in the morning, everything that you do is gaining some benefit for you or you will stop doing it. You cannot stop this. A human will not do things that it will not gain benefit from. Your body, mind, soul will turn away from anything that is not directly providing a benefit to you. There is no such thing as a completely selfless person that will give all of themselves
Guy Reams (06:23.661)
for no re-expectation of return. Whether you would want to admit it or not, everybody is getting a return for actions. Now, that return may not be monetary. That return could be many things. It could be acknowledgement. It could be a sense of community, a sense of belonging. It could be validation. It could be fame. It could be a million different things, but we're always getting benefits.
So every single action is designed for benefit. It's just the way it is. Now, it's knowing this, right? Understanding this about ourselves. And then really thinking about why we are doing certain things is what mindfulness is. You might hear people talk about being mindful in the meditative sense.
Like you have to meditate so you could be mindful What they're actually saying and this took me a long time to figure out but I finally figured it out What they're actually saying and this is by the way after Several years of meditating every day What they're what they're saying is that?
Once you start to really understand the reasons and the causality behind your actions, you will have more control over what you do during the day. So if we keep mindlessly going throughout our day and doing things without any thought to this, without any consideration of the motivation or reasons, then we will be a slave to this mindlessness. But if we want to be mindful, it means that we understand
what it is that is impacting us, and why we react the way we do, and why we're doing it. So if we understand the benefit we're expecting to receive from something, then we start to understand why we are doing it in the first place. Understanding this concept, I think, is a huge step towards focusing your life on what is the most important and having a greater perspective on how the small little daily things you do every day
Guy Reams (08:40.361)
impact your ability to achieve a goal. Right? Now, a lot of people will do things for no real reason. There is a reason they're doing it. They're just unaware of what the reasons are. And sometimes these reasons are bringing a benefit to the body but are destructive. For example, you could take a hard drug like cocaine, for example. Cocaine is a very powerful stimulant.
If the human body takes cocaine, it's like, hey, that was really beneficial to me. Left unchecked, the human body is going to want to do that again, because it did provide an enormous stimulation effect, which is actually good, right? If you think about it just from a pure utilitarian perspective. But it is destructive in the long run. So, or actually in the short run in some cases. But the point is,
You cannot allow yourself to just mindlessly do things without understanding the consequence or without understanding why you're doing it. You've oftentimes seen people that say they believe in something but actually do nothing about it. We call this hypocrisy, but I don't think it's hypocrisy. I think it's just lack of faith. I'll hear people say this all the time. Yeah, I believe in God. And then meanwhile, they're
they're doing things that would absolutely be not godlike. Or I believe in living a healthy lifestyle, yet they're driving to go buy a pack of donuts to eat that morning. Or I believe in going to the gym, but they don't actually go to the gym. So there's all sorts of things like this that happen all the time. Understanding
This difference between believing in something and actually doing something is a key thing because we are doing stuff for some benefit. Now it may not be giving us a lot of benefit, but it's giving us some benefit, right? So aligning your life to focus on things that bring you the most benefit with the least amount of negative side effects may sound really selfish, but it is not at all. It's incredibly important.
Guy Reams (11:06.197)
It's what separates those that have a phenomenal impact on society and those that do not. I mean, if you think about all the great leaders in society, the ones that had massive change, that caused massive change, all of those people were extremely focused on a particular thing, and they were very mindful about what they did every day and why they were doing it. These people are powerful, and you can become, or we can become, powerful too simply by making sure
that we are focused on the activities that bring the absolute maximum benefit.
So concept, you might want to think about it. What are you doing? And why are you doing it? And what benefit does it give you? For example, let's say you're a member of a religious faith. I mean, I don't care which one. But if you're a member of a religious faith, you might want to ask yourself, is that what benefit is that religious faith providing me? If the answer is, I can't really think of what benefits providing me, I bet you you're not going that.
often, or you're not participating. Humans just will not participate in something that's not giving you benefit. If you want to participate in a religion or another organization, and you want to be more involved for having a hard time getting motivated to do so, then you should really look at the benefits. Maybe you need to articulate those themselves to your better, so you'll actually do it. So this is a really important consideration, right?
If I come home and I sit down and I'm watching TV while eating a sugary snack and mindlessly watching something for hours while I eat a bunch of bad food, why am I doing that? What benefit am I getting? If you sit there think about it, there is a benefit. The human body is getting a benefit from this. The body wants a sugary calorie snack to provide itself with some quick, fast energy.
Guy Reams (13:03.725)
You do want to shut down and rest, right? So your mind is trying to do that. Or maybe you're overloaded and you need something to distract yourself. There's a reason why you're benefiting from this. Understanding that benefit really helps you understand how to control the behavior and move the behavior to good activities that provide the same benefit but that are not as destructive. Anyway, that's the concept.
Tomorrow, I'll dive into why I got into this idea in the first place. Thank you.