The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.   This quote from Richard Rohr has been with me for the last 3-4 years, and it pops into my head at the most random of times. Anytime I bump into a critical thought in my head, or hear a friend frustrated with something.   The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.   Now, of course, the easiest thing to do is to distance yourself from something and shoot flaming arrows at it. It’s never been easier to be critiquing things from the bleachers. And the frustrating thing about social media is that these armchair experts get a lot of traction.    There’s no question that people are frustrated with what’s going on… And more specifically the young folks in this country with what we’re inheriting… I don’t know about you, but I was promised that if I just go to college, assume 6-figures of debt before I can even legally drink a beer, and then follow my dreams! Everything will be fine!    Deeply nested in my upper-middle-class, white American privilege, I went to a 4 year private college and I didn’t come out with many loans at all, because my parents paid. I know that might make some of you hate me, but that’s the sort of head start I was given—I’m not going to be dishonest about it. I didn’t know how privileged I was until I watched my peers slink behind, crushed under the weight of debt. And we weren’t completely free of debt—I married into a bit of college debt as well.   But regardless, and I’m even hesitant to list all of the frustrations and panic-inducing parts of our American culture… Tuition prices increasing, the most unqualified politicians in office in the history of our country… Our environment begging for help. Coral reefs dying off, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch twice the size of Texas, a promise that our affect on the climate is irreversible as early as 12 years from now. Sexual scandals across every industry, in every area of leadership, including the church…    There’s a lot to be concerned about. And I was actually just listening to a podcast from Kent Dobson where he just did what I did, listing all this crap and I was like, “WHY?! Why are you reminding me of all this crap?” So I’m not going to be heavy-handed with it. You know. If you’re paying attention to impeachment hearings, environmental concerns, the fragility of our country’s global relationships… Whatever. It needs to serve as a foundation for this conversation today. Because it’s really easy to see what’s wrong, it’s really easy to throw in critiques from the sidelines… That’s easy. If you feel high and mighty because you SEE WHATS WRONG with something… you’re not very impressive. Some of these things are so broken, my 4 year old son pokes holes in their logic.    But what I see in many of my peers is not leaning forward into solutions, but instead slumping back into cynicism. And anger.    Yes, a lot of what we’ve been handed by the previous generation is not working. Yes, there’s a lot of racism, and greed, and gender inequality in the workplace. These are things that need reform. Yes, but recognizing the problem is only a part of it. A small, small part of it. 10% of it. The other 90% is figuring out what to do about it.    The best criticism of the bad is the practiceof the better.   Instead of tweeting from the sidelines, it’s time to get involved. And maybe not getting involved simply to argue, but rather to begin developing better, more sustainable, beneficial practices. Yes, your perspective matters. In fact, there is no one on earth with your exact unique perspective on things. Your opinion matters, just not as much as you think it does.    Don’t get me wrong, there are times appropriate for confrontation and speaking truth to power… I’ve talked about that on this podcast, back in an episode called “Hard Conversations” and “Make America Good Again.”    But opinions don’t get us anywhere. In fact, they sort of suck us into a spiral vortex, like water draining out of a tub… It just turns into navel gazing, and up-voting or down-voting other people’s opinions.    The person with the best opinion DOESN’T win. That’s not how this life-game works. The people with the greatest contribution to change; the people that are willing to get their hands dirty; the people willing to try and fail; the people willing to put their egos aside—their pursuit of money aside—their pursuit of status aside—and maybe, just maybe, make a meaningful impact on things.    It makes me think of Brene Brown’s work, and more importantly, the words from 1910, Teddy Roosevelt speech that inspired her work Daring Greatly:    “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”   A worthy cause… My fear for my generation is that we’ll be overwhelmed with causes, and as a result not make any meaningful contributions. The blessing and the curse of globalization and the access/information from the internet is that we now KNOW nearly everything wrong that’s going on in the world. And if you don’t know, you’re one BREAKING NEWS ALERT away from it.    It’s good to know things. It’s good to have evil people and practices exposed. It’s good to have the accountability of the public eye… But it can result in compassion fatigue. There’s a level of overwhelm we can reach when we need to retreat back into our shells, because it’s all just too much… There are too many things that need reform. There are too many worthy causes and not enough time, enough money, enough mental bandwidth to devote toward solutions…    So what do we do? My proposal is to take this teaching from Richard Rohr, pass it through a teaching from the book Essentialism, and land with a modern parable from Rob Bell.    Father Rohr’s teaching: The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Yes, this is true. Actions over opinions.    But we can’t focus on all the bad, and practice all the better. It’s impossible. Too many worthy causes, too little time. Which brings us to Essentialism, a book by Greg McKeown, with a subtitle: The disciplined pursuit of less.    The big idea from this book, beyond the sheer genius of the title, and how helpful it is in my vocabulary, is to determine, through a disciplined, systematic approach, where our highest point of contribution is (another great phrase, the highest point of contribution for the day).   In the book, and I encourage you to buy it, read it or listen to it. It’s excellent. In it, he gives you permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, so that you have space to become an Essentialist. Then deliberately distinguishing the vital few from the trivial many… Eliminating the non-essentials. Removing obstacles. Removing distractions.    Another great quote here: “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” And recognizing the shadow side of our privilege, statistically being amongst the healthiest, wealthiest people on earth, living in America, roof over our heads, if you make $40,000/year, you’re richer than 97% of the earth. You have options. You perhaps have SO MANY options that you’re overwhelmed and therefore don’t do much of anything, besides crushing Netflix series and devoting hours upon hours to social media.    Do me a favor, right now, whatever you’re doing, as long as you’re not driving, if you have an iPhone, unlock your screen, go to Settings (the gear box icon), click on Screen time (little purple hourglass), then you see your day and how many hours you’ve spent on your phone so far today. There’s a little gray arrow in the top right, click on that. That brings up your Last 7 Days. Click on that. What’s your average, per day, spent on your phone? Mine is 2 hours, 35 minutes. It’s up 17% from last week. Below the bar graph you’ll see little gray numbers for Weekly Total. My weekly total from last week is 18 hours, 5 minutes. 18 hours. 4 hours and 38 minutes on Instagram, 2 hours 27 minutes texting, 1 hour 4 minutes on Twitter… If you scroll down it shows you more information. I get around 188 notifications per day, which is why my phone lives on Do Not Disturb.    It was even higher for me a few weeks ago, which is why I deleted Facebook from my phone. I’m not saying phones are evil, there’s a lot of meaningful connection in the hundreds of texts I send and receive every day. There’s a lot of leisure and entertainment in that 4 hours of Instagram use last week. BUT… the complaint that we don’t have enough time to do something meaningful with our lives is a myth. It just is. I used my phone 18 hours 5 minutes last week. That’s a part-time job. If I worked diligently to bring that down to 10 hours, freeing up 8 hours per week, what could I spent that time doing? That’s an extra hour and change every day. That’s 32 hours a month I could put behind writing a book, launching a new idea, learning a new language, volunteering at a local non-profit, reading books, taking courses to try to discern what my “worthy cause” is.    This certainly isn’t the first time someone has highlighted how poorly we use our time… This isn’t news. But maybe this is the time that you actually CARE? Maybe this is the time that you actually check your phone usage, setup “downtime” on your phone? A few weeks ago, I took Facebook off my phone, and turned on “Downtime” from 9pm to 6am, that blocks out apps that suck my time up late at night like Instagram or Twitter, and apps that I shouldn’t start my day with either, like News or Email. If I want to break the rule, I can, it’s just a few clicks, I can ignore it for the next 15 minutes, but the fact that I’m intentionally breaking a boundary my former self felt was really important is often enough of a conviction to honor it.    These are incredible tools that we can craft to best serve us and our dreams for our lives… not become victims to them. Not getting sucked into exactly what these social media vacuums are designed to do to us. If you want to learn more about how Facebook designed their app like a slot machine, even learning from gambling industry consultants when designing notifications and Likes, I recommend an episode from Yes Theory on YouTube. Go to YouTube, search for “Yes Theory Social Media” and there’s a video from 7 months ago called “Deleting social media for 30 days changed my life.” That’s what convinced me to delete Facebook from my phone.    K, back to Essentialism. The paradox of success: the more options we have, the more we feel distracted from what would otherwise be our highest level of contribution. I know completely depend on our branding agency for my income. There’s no outside coaching with 10,000 Fathers, there’s no salary coming from church… In the last year, my family went from 3-4 income streams down to essentially 1, with our business. This is a good thing. It means our business can support our family. But, what it also creates is an abundance of bandwidth, open time, no boss telling me how to work, when to work, what to work on… I have options. And sometimes the more options you have, the more you feel distracted from this highest-point-of-contribution you could be making.    Once an Australian nurse named Bronnie Ware, who cared for people in the last twelve weeks of their lives, recorded their most often discussed regrets. At the top of the list: ‘I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.’”                   Before saying yes to anything, ask yourself, “Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution towards my goal?”                   The three realities without which Essentialist thinking would be neither relevant nor possible.                   Individual choice: We can choose how to spend our energy and time.

1. The prevalence of noise: Almost everything is noise, and a very few things are exceptionally valuable.
2. The reality of trade-offs: We can’t have it all or do it all.
3. “Once we accept the reality of trade-offs we stop asking, ‘How can I make it all work?’ and start asking the more honest question ‘Which problem do I want to solve?’”                

  Essentialists ask, “What do I feel deeply inspired by?” and “What am I particularly talented at?” and “What meets a significant need in the world?”   “Essentialists invest the time they have saved into creating a system for removing obstacles and making execution as easy as possible.”   “Essentialism is not a way to do one more thing; it is a different way of doing everything. It is a way of thinking.”   K, so Father Rohr inspires us to stop critiquing and start practicing; Greg McKeown gives us a tool to clear the clutter and find the few things that truly matter.    And Rob Bell, in a recent podcast of his called “A Hymn of the Curve” … Like a hymn, a spiritual song, for the curve. It’s a collection of proverbial sayings and parables that he’s found helpful for anyone on the front edge of something… Anyone that is doing something a bit pioneering; a bit risky; a bit uncharted… And one of the parables struck me. It’s not original to him, but he shared it, I found a written version of it in a book by Ronald Rolheiser called “Living God’s Justice.”    Once upon a time there was a town that was built just beyond the bend of a large river. One day some of the children from the town were playing beside the river when they noticed three bodies floating in the water. They ran for help and the people quickly pulled the bodies out of the river.   One body was dead so they buried it. One was a live, but quite ill, so they put that person into the hospital. The third turned out to be a healthy child, who they then placed with a family who cared for it and who took it to school.   From that day on, every day a number of bodies came floating down the river, and every day, the good people of the town would pull them out and tend to them—taking the sick to hospitals, placing the children with families, and burying those who were dead.   This went on for years; each day brought its quota of bodies, and the townsfolk not only came to expect a number of bodies each day but also worked at developing more elaborate systems for picking them out of the river and tending to them. Building docks out into the river, developing shepherd’s crooks to catch the bodies as they went by… Some of the townsfolk became quite generous in tending to these bodies and a few extraordinary ones even gave up their jobs so that they could tend to this concern full-time. And the town itself felt a certain health pride in its generosity.   But then one day, a group of people decided, instead of walking towards the river to help with that day’s bodies… they walked away. The people that were going out on the dock and collecting the bodies watched them walk away. They were frustrated. They were critical. They were angry.    But the people walking away weren’t abandoning the work, they were walking upstream.    Nobody had thought to go up river, beyond the bend…    And my encouragement for you today is this: Go upstream. While you’re considering what greater thing to give your life to… What area to stop critiquing and begin practicing some sort of solution in… Don’t follow what’s always been done. Don’t react to symptoms. Go upstream. Find the source of the symptoms. Instead of constantly cleaning out cobwebs, day after day, cleaning cobwebs, maintenance—Instead of cleaning the cobwebs, kill the spider.    We have too many people treating symptoms. And if you walk upstream, it might look to those around you like you’re abandoning them. Or giving up on the important work. But you aren’t. You’re going upstream. You’re not satisfied putting a band-aid on a bullet-wound… You want to stop the manufacturing of all these guns in the first place.    What are you critical of? Are you critical of it because you can see a better way of doing it? Or are you just an asshole?    I’m serious. The things that you’re frustrated with are likely things you care deeply about that aren’t currently being done very well. Of course there’s a better way. There’s always a better way. There’s always a way to improve what’s currently accepted as the “only way to do something.”    I wanted to end with a quote from Steve Jobs, and I thought about reading it, but then I figured why not hear it from him directly…    QUOTE   This episode was a bit all over the place, but welcome to my mind. To summarize it, get off the couch, stop wasting your time with sharing your opinions on social media, no one cares… clear out the distractions and the things that other people want to put on your plate as your priorities and how you should live your life, and find the thing that inspires you… Go upstream. And see if you might make a meaningful impact—The highest point of contribution for your life.    My “why” for the last 5 years has simply been this: To help grow fruit on other people’s trees. If at the end of my life, there’s some semblance of an orchard that I’ve been tending to—inspiring others, empowering others, activating things in people’s lives—then my life was worthwhile. The HOW can look like a thousand different things. And it has. Sometimes it’s a sermon, sometimes it’s a strategy session, sometimes it’s having a friend over and drinking beer and building them a website in an evening to enable them to follow their dreams, sometimes it’s talking friends off the cliff…    I want you to find your why, and begin working towards clarity in that thing. It’ll never be completely clear. But hopefully you always have a few next steps that are pretty clear, and that’s enough to keep me moving forward.    I love you guys, thanks for taking the time to spend with me. Make it a good day.