Latest / Relatively Functional Dads / Episode 003 – The Entitlement Trap: “I Deserve This”
Transcript
- Noah: Hey, welcome into the podcast. I hope you guys are finishing up a few miles on the treadmill. Maybe you're driving back from a long day at the office. Maybe you're wrapping up a few dishes because you're helping wifey after the kids went down. However you join us, thank you guys. This is a podcast for dads that show up and that's who we are. I'm here joined as always co-host Reese, producer Noah. Way too beautiful to be behind the camera, but eventually you will see his beautiful face. He is a part of this operation. man, I'm glad you're here, dude. Hey, happy to be here. The Boys And Audio: welcome to the Relatively Functional Dads podcast for fathers doing their best and learning every day. We're just three relatives walking through faith, fatherhood, and real life together. That was me. ⁓ experts here, just honest conversations about the wins, the struggles, and the moments that shape us as men and dads. Some days we've got it together, other days we're just trying to get to bedtime, but we keep showing up. And if you're dad... ⁓ In the middle of it too, you're in the right place. Let's journey through this together. Noah: look forward to it all week. ⁓ We tend to do these things. I recently talked about maybe picking better days to do stuff like this rather than a Thursday night before we ⁓ do an early morning on Fridays. But hey, looking forward to it. Yeah, I agree. It gives me something look forward to all day. And ⁓ March Madness is here. The madness, we also picked the wrong night because of the madness going on. But yeah, at the time of this recording, it is the first day of the NCAA tournament. My favorite time of year, genuinely favorite time of the year and it lined up with literally the best day weather-wise in central Indiana we've had in six months. Yeah, vibes are good in the household. I was actually nice to people today. Yeah, yeah, I could tell you were texting me back. was. Very responsive once the sun came out. Sad winter, We're not going to belabor the intro as we talked about this last episode. So I'm just, I'm going to be quick. Please subscribe. Please subscribe to the channel. We're trying to get Reese through college again. We're trying to more importantly, spread the word. Seriously, we want people to be a part of this community because this community is for ⁓ dads. And we want to make sure that this can get to as many people as possible just to help be a support, let them know that they're not going through this alone. And ⁓ one of the best ways you can support us is by taking two seconds to subscribe. You won't miss any of the episodes when they drop. Leave a review, leave a comment on Spotify, on YouTube. ask us a question. We'd love to do a little Q and A mailbag session in the time to come. Some of those are our ⁓ favorite things that we listen to and other podcasts we enjoy. anyways, yeah, please do that. Engage with us as much as you can. And we'd really enjoy that feedback. Reese, you did a great job. You got the outline for this episode. I'm excited to see where this goes. Against all odds. Man, it came out. On time. It was, ⁓ it's really perfect timing. honestly too, because it's a topic that think ⁓ majority of people, dads or otherwise, will really relate to. And we're talking about, as you know, the entitlement trap. That idea of like, hey, I deserve this. I have worked hard today or this week. I did the right thing. ⁓ I have done X, Y, and Z better than this person, that person, and whoever. So I now deserve this. the thing that you pointed out when we were prepping for this is it's dangerous because Entitlement, it doesn't like on its surface come across as pride, but what it comes disguised as is justification. And it's a lot easier to justify your way into doing the wrong thing than it to just like blatantly look obviously like the wrong thing. So that's what we're diving into today. But as always, if you're new to the podcast, we start by having a little bit of fun, a little bit of laugh at my pain, a little bit of a learn some lessons from me or with me, celebrating some of the wins, some of the things we're learning. As a reminder, you got an eight month old son. ⁓ He's starting to crawl. lot of fun life development things. Noah's got a couple of youngins under three. ⁓ I got a four and a half year old girl. I got a two and a half year old boy. And then we're like four and a half weeks at the time of this recording from our due date with the baby number three. clearly we're learning a lot. What's our first segment that we're jumping into today? Diving into for the win. Just sharing ⁓ a win from the last week or so. Said it before, but probably anything since the last recording, so it could be last two weeks basically, but ⁓ for me, probably just... fought for intentional time with Jesus. ⁓ Something I'm reconnected with a mentor of mine named Jed, who helped Eli and I with pre-medical counseling, him and his wife, Katie. And I just mentioned that I've got no structure and routine when it comes to spending time with Jesus, which is always funny because I knew that. All I'd have to do is just implement it on my own, but it just takes somebody else for me sometimes just saying, why don't you implement this? Shout out to Jed. Yeah, shout out to Jed. And you know what? It's probably just the accountability. meet with him every two weeks, just somebody to talk to. So if you want to start a new pattern or habit, put somebody in your life that loves you. A little older than you. A little older than you. Knows your shadow side, knows you through and through your ups and downs. Yeah. who has hopefully been successful at the thing you're trying to do at a time or two, or at least has had some practice, but got my intentional time with Jesus. And the reason I mean that to be a win is I don't always think about it, but the best way can love and honor my family is by committing my life to Jesus. Over and over again, I've been in church since I was five, gave my life to Jesus. Truly my decision when I was 12 and got baptized. And it's just a reminder, especially now that I'm married and have a kid that really best way I can love them is to just get filled up, spend time with Jesus. And so yeah, that's my win for the week. What about you? It's good, man. Especially because the last couple of weeks we've spent time talking, we cannot be fathers unless we're being fathered by God. So yeah, I'm really happy to hear that. Mine's also about discipleship. Nice. About discipling my son Grayson. Two examples, one more important than the other. ⁓ as the listeners may or may not know, I'm a big Tennessee Vols guy. Go Vols. Go Vols. Go Big Orange. I'm a grad from there, lived in Northeast Tennessee for 20 years. And yeah, you're going to raise your kids right in the Lord. And this is one of those areas I refuse to let Satan win. So we will not be Florida fans. We will not be Gator fans. We will not be Alabama Crimson Tide. And I bring up those two examples because in our neighborhood on either side of our house right now, we moved to central Indiana and we have Bama fans on one side and a Florida grad on the other. We're super tight with them. Enemy territory though. Enemy territory. So you got to stay strapped. You got to stay ready. Grayson also being two and a half, he's learning his colors. So we have taught him red is red, green is green, black is black, but orange is Tennessee. So when he sees the color orange, he just thinks it's Tennessee Go Vols is what it is. So we are, ⁓ Madeline's actually hanging out with the kids in the cul-de-sac when it was a warmer day this past week. Grayson is in our neighbor who's the big Crimson Tide, Kaylee. You know, they love Alabama. We pick fun with the lesh's. We have a good time. When Tennessee beat them in football, a couple years ago, I dropped off a bag of oranges on their front porch as a good Valls fan should. they dropped off an elephant. Yeah, they got us back this past year in football. We won't talk about that. But so anyways, Grayson says, hey, mommy, can I get that ball? And ⁓ Madeline says, yeah, yeah, go get it. And it's an orange basketball. ⁓ right then without skipping a beat, because we just all the time say, hey, what color is this? What color is that? She says, hey, what color is that ball, Grayson? And without skipping a beat, he goes, Tennessee, go Vols. And then immediately, Kaylee looks at Madeline and is like, no, no, isn't that awesome? So discipling our sons who ⁓ love the big orange, go Vols. But another situation with it being Lent, it's ⁓ coming up on the Easter season, really fighting for it to be more than egg hunts and chocolate and peeps and and the Easter bunny and all the things that are fun. How dare you? I know. ⁓ You're an American. You're going to get a lot of candy out of this because we'll still do it. We'll just limit the intake and you can eat plenty when you come here. Yeah, I'm going to just set out on that Easter egg hunt before the kids get out there. ⁓ these eggs are empty. What happened here? Yeah. So we're working hard on that. We do those things. It's going to be fun. But man, my daughter's already latching on to so many of the things that I'm like, these don't really matter. So we're having these conversations around the breakfast table and he's ⁓ Naomi's talking about something that she learned this, that and the other. And she's talking about Jesus coming in on a donkey, know, like he's coming in the triumphal entry, Palm Sunday, I think they learned about that church. And I said, Naomi, do you remember what they were shouting whenever he was walking into Jerusalem? And she kind of looked for a second and graced him, piped up and he said, Hosanna. And I'm like, bro, I didn't even know you knew what that word meant. He does know what that word means, but I didn't even know he heard that word. So that's wild. So there was a cool story, like it was just. I had a great conversation around the table. It's a win of like your kids are listening more than you think and we're gonna have fun. Like Easter is gonna be a blast, but sprinkling in those little things with different stories we're reading, talking about what they learned Sunday morning at kids church and stuff like that's been good. That's awesome. I love that. I love that he said Hosanna. I bet that shocked you. It did. ⁓ And we're gonna keep building on that. So yeah, go big orange and Hosanna. That's what we got. ⁓ Should have known better. You wanna go over with me or go? No, go ahead. I'll talk too much. Go ahead. Gotta keep it under an hour. Under an hour. ⁓ man. I had to write a couple down. I actually have more than this. first one was I, again, I'm home with Roman on Tuesdays. Roman's my eight month old son and huge blessing getting to stay home with him. I get to play with him all day ⁓ and I also get to go run my errands with him and that kind of stuff. So. I made a Costco run and I was in a bit of a hurry. I have a virtual meeting every Tuesday at 2 p.m. and I needed to run and go get some groceries and stuff like that. And I needed to get ⁓ Costco, I've just got a few staples. my- Pizza. If you really wanna know- I do. It's the Kirkland chicken chunks, great macros. Okay. Good like, I don't know, 16 grams of protein for six grams of fat and then- little bit more carbs than the, I get like two things that have good macros. They've got some apple gouda chicken sausages. Fire. That are tasty and great macros. And then the Kirkland chicken chunks, great macros. Are those the ones that are like knockoff Chick-fil-A nuggets? Okay, Bear Nuggets. No free shout out, but Bear Nuggets is... Producer Noah confirms. I think the Kirkland is the knockoff of the Bear. Knockoff Bear. So it's very, they're very similar. They're about two dollars cheaper. It's a poor man's man's. So we get the Kirkland because they're two dollars cheaper. yeah, Costco has this really interesting way of making me think I'm getting a deal, but then all of my money is gone whenever I leave there. But ⁓ either way, love Costco. Saving a lot of gas. But shout out Costco. Shout out Costco. Although we might... do BJ's because it's closer to the house, we'll see. ⁓ But I had Roman, so he's in the, whatever you want to call it, the big cart. Way better carts at Costco than other places. The big carts. Dad hack. But when you first walk into Costco, People are doing their jobs. I've been there. It sucks. Trying to bother people as they pass by or trying to get someone to buy something as they pass by. There's no shame, all love. I get it. But I thought that Roman was going to be my get out of jail free card for that. And he was not. Read the room, dude. Again, I'm in a hurry. I've got a meeting I got to get back to. I don't know how long Roman's going to last in this car seat in the store. I've got like five things I need to grab and then I'm trying to get out of there and I walk by. two just really nice guys start talking to me about, what do you even call those? Those like office water dispensers where you put the upside down jug, like five gallon jug. And they start talking to me about this water dispenser. And every time someone bothers me when I don't wanna be bothered, I try to remember when Jesus said, when you did it for the least of me. these, you did it for me. When you did it for the Costco worker? Yes, whenever I gave someone the time of day and I didn't really feel like it, maybe I'm doing it, maybe I did it to him. So I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna listen to this guy. Well, 15 minutes go by and he's got my phone in his hand about to order some water stuff. And I'm like, dude, hold on, no. I was like, that's not, I thought he was gonna, he said he was gonna show me something. And I didn't realize he, basically was gonna show me the things he was about to click on and then was pretty close to just click and submit and buying this thing. I just, was really looking forward to explaining to Elly why we had a, why we had a water filtration system or like a, whatever you want to call it, water dispenser on the way to your house. hire him on my sales team, dude. Yeah. That's pretty elite. Yeah. He's a, he's a great guy too. Again, I'm serious. I liked him a lot. And then I was just like, I need to do my shopping, let me think about it. And then he was like, well, the deal's only for today. And I said, if I want it, I'll come back whenever I'm done. I did not go back whenever I was done. But hey, I hope he sold a lot of water dispensers that You know, I can be a little more blunt with people. Do you know why? Because in sales, the number one rule is if you're going to lose, lose early. That's nice. So you're doing them a kindness Hey, man, let me save you some time. I respect your time, so I don't want to disrespect you by taking any more of it. I ain't interested. Try that one next time. Will do. You're a lot nicer than me. be honest with you, I normally just take a different route once I walk in. Don't avoid the eye contact. But you thought Roman was your out. I thought Roman was my out, so I thought I was safe. So I just took my normal walk. now I know better. Yep. Should have known better. Babies are not an excuse to not confront people. You want me to do my second one, or you want to in and toss it back to me? No, go ahead. OK. If you've never told your wife that something is 100 % her fault, I would not recommend. And those exact words. I'm gonna set the scene for this. I'm not gonna explain the whole situation, because I don't want it to be out there for the no listeners that we have right now to take sides. But a lot of times we'll talk about splitting or sharing responsibility for something. It's on both of us. And this was one of those things where was like, she was like, well, this was on both of us. And it was a small thing. It wasn't like anything major. It was like a daily task that we needed to do. But that's a good one to test this theory out on. Yeah. Yes, correct. These were the low stakes that you test something like this out on. And that's definitely what was going through Reese's mind Yes. I was like, this is low stakes. Strategic. We're good. I was like, I'm probably going to tick her off later today anyways. So here we go. the dads. This is like a dad lab situation. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but basically it was like, hey, did this get done? And I said, no. I thought that you were going to do this. to which I don't remember. think she mentioned like, I don't think we discussed me doing it. I thought that you did it. And then it was this kind of like back and forth. Either way, I thought that I was in the right. still do. You can be right and be wrong though. Yes, you can be right and you can be right and come wrong, let me tell you that. Come incorrect. And so I'm like, hey, I just want let you know I love you. I think it's okay for you to take full responsibility on this this time. I'm gonna treat you to the opportunity of Because here's the hard thing. Is that am the type of person who says, hey, you actually don't need to take any responsibility for this. You are. This one's on me. Like you're known to own it. So it was one of those I'm doing this for a lot of people. This is how I am. Which, by the way, you should not hold people to standards that you set for yourself. It is a losing strategy for all relationships. Work, everything. ⁓ So yes, I'm the type of person who's like, you actually believe it not, don't need to take any blame for this. This is on me. That's the type of person that I am, depending on the situation. And so I was like, You know, I'm gonna press the issue on this one. I'm like, it's totally fine for you to just say, this is 100 % on you, it's not the end of the world, I think it'd actually be good for you to just go ahead and do this. And she's like, who do you think you are? And I was like, oh, this is not, I was like, this is derailing, this is early in the day But the biggest question is, did you double down or did you retreat? I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't remember. Okay. You blacked out. This is two weeks ago. think that... She can correct me if I'm wrong. She will. She will. I think that I just said it. I'm not gonna share the blame with you on this one. basically, you know what, I don't think I said I wasn't gonna share the blame. I think I said, hey, totally okay if we disagree. I actually think this one's on you without me. And I don't think we agreed to disagree. I think we both just were mad the whole day and then made up. disagreed. Yeah, just disagreed and were irritated the whole day and then made up ⁓ later that evening. I don't remember how we smooth things over, but ⁓ one of the things we like to say is we, We rebound quick from any malice because neither of us can live in a household like that. So we're normally pretty quick to bounce back. But that would be my should have known better. Don't tell your wife or honestly many people that you think it's 100 % on them. I appreciate, again, the scientific experiment for the community. You're welcome. So learn from us. It's really for the people that I did what I did. Yeah. And thank you, Elly for enduring his stupidity. My wife's amazing. takes care of way more tasks. Probably one of the reasons why she was hoping that I'd take a little bit of the responsibility. And she's letting you have a sleepover with me tonight. That's right. Yeah. I don't have to drive home and... You're welcome too, dude. There's a twin upstairs y'all can share. for us to snuggle in. We can go to group in the morning. You're welcome. All right. I got one for you. But for real, if you want to Noah you're welcome. Should have known better. So when you have a two and a half year old, you can't discipline him the same way you can a four and a half year old. At some point we'll have an episode on discipline. It's not gonna be any time in the near future because none of us are qualified to talk on that yet. yeah, yeah, we're not pros at all. We're a non spanking family ⁓ for now. And ⁓ so we're figuring that out. Soft. Yeah, gentle parenting, not quite gentle parenting, but somewhere in between as I'm kind of a moderate in all things in life. I like to ride the fence. So, you know. I'm okay with that. I've met a lot of very black and white people that are very irritating to me. So. We're riding the fence on discipline. ⁓ Grayson, my two and a half year old was, we were supposed to sit down and eat dinner. He was slow to get to the table. Okay. He already yelled at me once. He already hit me once. You know this. If you touch my face, I just kind of like go fight or flight. probably one of the funniest things. Which is terrible because you're so mad whenever it happens and I have to just walk away. I get hit in the face a lot by my kids. The beard pull. Yeah dude, that's exactly right. The beard pull is brutal too. So he hits me in the face, I put him down, I pick him back up and I'm trying to think of a consequence. ⁓ what I do know about discipline at this age is you have to have it something in the immediate if they're like under three and a half. So at Naomi it can be like, hey, if you don't do this now, we're not gonna read, we're reading Chronicles of Narnia series. So we're not gonna read tonight before bed. And she can equate what's happening at 6 p.m. with 8 p.m. Grayson, like if it's within five minutes, you're good. If not, you're hosed. So I was trying to think of a punishment. I couldn't think of one. And I said, hey, if you hit me again, we're not gonna read a book together tonight, because we do family reading together. And like, it's like as it was leaving my mouth, he like connects with me across the top, dude. So now my mom's in town. wife heard it. Naomi most importantly heard it because she's going to hold all of us toes to the fire when the time comes. So now I'm like, ⁓ crap, dude, that was like a stupid consequence. I should have known better. Like I know that's a thing for my four and a half year old. My two and a half year old is we're going to go in the other room time out. You're going to sit in the corner. It's more immediate, you know? So I thought we like, ⁓ circled back a half hour later. I said, hey, Madeline, I dropped the ball. Like I shouldn't have. said that punishment. I know we're on the same page of like punishments for Grayson and it got to be within like a five minute time frame. So let's just not bring it up. He'll forget about it. We'll just read the book. She said, absolutely. Sounds great. So it goes great. We make it through bedtime for him. Naomi goes to bed 15, 20 minutes later. I read the story to her, Narnia. We go to bed. 10 minutes later, she starts screaming. I'm like, what is wrong, dude? I thought she'd be asleep. Usually she's asleep within a few minutes. happening is she's just like her mom and her grandma, which means when she goes to bed at night as a four and a half year old already, she's thinking about the entire day laying anxiously awake instead of sleeping ⁓ she goes, daddy, you told Grayson and he wouldn't be able to read a story. But you did. ⁓ keeping her up at night. ⁓ craziest thing is I somehow... ⁓ I explained pretty quickly, hey, like it wasn't age appropriate for me to do that. Daddy made a mistake and when he's your age, we'll start doing those type of consequences. She looked at me and she said, oh, so you didn't forget? I was like, no, I chose not to punish him because I made a mistake. And she was like, okay, and went back to sleep. anyways, should have known better. Don't punish. Be consistent with your punishments, age specific, but the oldest will keep you accountable for the discipline of the youngest. I want to honor you for being honest with your kid. I feel like the tactic oftentimes just... lie to your kids because it doesn't it feels like it doesn't matter but it does yeah yeah no i appreciate that yeah yeah no no no absolutely but i mean my wife helps me in that because again we had a game plan in this this is not our first it's not our oldest it's our second time around so ⁓ yeah but i should have known better more of one for the punishment but more of that naomi would have let me get away with it that's crazy i honestly the thing that popped in my head immediately upon you giving like a reaction to a punishment or like a reactive punishment that didn't make any sense for him is when one of the neighbors kids, when we were living here, ran out into this field that she wasn't supposed to run into and, are we naming names? We're not naming Nah, probably not. Okay, cool. One of the neighbors. The Bama fan. One of the neighbors ⁓ kids, little girl, was running out into this field over to another house. nothing crazy, but she wasn't supposed to be running over there. She was supposed to be staying close to the house and little girl's mom, neighbor, goes, get back here or else. And then we're sitting on the back porch and she goes, I don't have a punishment. Or I'm gonna. I'm telling you, that's a lot of what we say about parenting. If you don't have a game plan going into it, you're just not smart enough in the moment. No, I shared this with you beforehand, but when Roman was little, honestly months like. from birth to about four and a half, five months before we did sleep training, Roman was up. every three hours at night and stuff like that. So we prepped for it, had a game plan, who's taking care of him under these circumstances, this night, this shift, blah, blah, blah. And ⁓ well, from months five through eight, he's pretty much slept 12 hours. We are blessed. The kid is crushing it. God knew we couldn't handle it for him to be up in the middle of the night over and over again. ⁓ Shout out to our friends who... still struggling to get their kids to sleep. got it bro. We got it. We got blessed. Staying in the trenches. past few nights he had a fever on Monday and has just been waking up in the middle of the night and not crying like he needs us just making like... Whining. Almost like whale sounds. Just kind of like whiny sounds and we keep the monitor on. Elly and I disagree on what volume the monitor should be on. I'd feel perfectly content, just trusting Is it on her side or your side? It's on my side. Yeah, you get to choose the ⁓ That's the easiest solution. Well, you heard it I can't wait to... I'll stand by that. Yeah. It's on my side. ⁓ It's not a huge difference. There's a bar that goes up to like five. I like it at one. She likes it at two. So like it's not that big of a difference. But when you're up at 3.30 in the morning and you don't want to be, also I had to be up at... 4.59 a.m. And the reason why I do that is so I can say I got up in the fours. And got up at four. mean, grinding. Gotta be able to flex on people. So to be up at 3.30 knowing that I have to be up at five was not my favorite. But we're both laying there. I assume she's awake because she's a lighter sleeper than I am. Most things, most of the time it takes a tree falling on the house to wake me up. But I think I've gotten kind of the parenting accustomed to his cry a little bit. And so we're both laying there, he's just making these sounds with no escalation. And it's been 45 minutes, it's like 415. And I know that neither of us are going in there, because we're pretty set on, unless he seems like he's in distress. Yeah, yeah. Like his. He needs to learn to self-soothe. Yes, and he's good at it. He's gotten great at self-soothing. No neglect here. Don't be reporting this. No neglect. Yeah. If he doesn't escalate to a point where it seems like he's in pain, if he's just like making sounds and just kind of seems like he's just, I don't know. I don't know what he was like in the middle of the night last night. I was irritated and angry and I'm sitting there. So I go to grab the monitor. I just kind of pull it over to the bed and we have no... The reason I mention all this is we mentioned it's good to have a game plan. We had no game plan because we don't get up in the middle of the night anymore. she's like, Elly, first thing she says to it's been 45 minutes of us just laying here listening to this. I'm like about to freak out. And she goes, did you turn the volume down? Like I had grabbed it less than like 10 seconds had passed and she goes, did you turn the volume down? And when I tell you, that I tried to sound irritated. I said, no, I did not turn the volume down like real clear and concise to let her know that I was angry. And I wait a second, she doesn't say anything. And I hear, I think you did. I don't remember what transpired after that, but I was all I was seeing red. I was all kinds of angry. ⁓ And so, yeah, have a game plan. ⁓ And then once you don't need the plan anymore come up with what the game plan is gonna be whenever you do need the game plan again I'm a derail again. That's a conversation. I don't even care about yeah We'll never get to the title mid trap because we don't have to confront. I was I was against this whole structured thing anyways You ever rage clean? I mean your spouse for sure rage cleans But I do from time to time like seriously the science is like you got to move your hands to like emotionally process But if you ever rage gotten your baby up, you know Forget it, I'm gonna get the freaking child, right? Because you just gotta get out of bed because you're so angry. Yes, but only so that I can only so that I can hold it over my wife's head later that day that I got up and cleaned the house or I got up and got the baby. So that's the confession we needed to transition into the entitlement drive. But yeah, I had one of those the other morning because our kids are older, but they relapse sleep all the time and said a choice word under my breath. We've been watching a Clarkson farm. Shout out Clarkson farms. I think that's it's called. That was called. And I don't know it. British people cuss a lot. Man, just in general. It's part of the culture. Yeah, dude. And it just sounds like less crude. It does. But then I like came out of my mouth for the first time in a long time and I was like, dang it, man. But yeah, I rage checked on my daughter. Yeah, I wasn't raging I understand. I was just like angry. I I I get what you're saying. And then you get there like, you're like, oh, hey, baby, how are you? You know, and because you don't want them to feel that, but you are. You're eating up on side. Yeah. I mean, I definitely have not not not the same thing, but I've set Roman down in the earlier stages so that I could like tremble with my whole body and just try and get whatever, whatever kind of energy out that I needed to get out, ⁓ hit my head on a few things on purpose, and then just kind of get you back into reality. Like a middle linebacker. Yes, exactly. little too amped before the kickoff. Yeah. need someone to like, whenever like a professional power lifter is about to lift the heaviest deadlift of his life, he's got that guy that goes up and just smacks him in the back a bunch of times. I guess that amps him up. That's not what I'm looking for. I need the opposite of- Leave a comment. I need the opposite of sniffing salts. Whatever that is. Chamomile tea. Yes, some chamomile tea, something, some herbal, some tea. Hey, since I've been off the caffeine, I've been a nicer person. Hey, that's good. It's helping. It makes me concerned because when I go back, which I will go back, means I'll probably be mean again. Yeah. So, okay, let's transition. Hey, entitlement. Speaking of ⁓ holding stuff over people's heads, hey, we've all been there. Entitlement, like we mentioned at the beginning of this episode, it rarely sounds like pride or arrogance. It's more subtle. It's more manipulative. It's ⁓ it's cloaked in self-righteousness. It sounds a lot like, know, I've earned this because I've done this today. I thought of something, I was talking to my buddy, our buddy, Zach, about this based off another podcast we were listening to. And a lot of times we compare ourselves to other dads. So like, man, I know such and such don't do this, but I do, I don't know that. Or we compare ourselves to our own dads. Like, man, I'm doing way more than my dad did. Like, I'm cooking dinner and doing bedtime and, you know, fill in the blank with whatever. And like, I don't remember what my dad did when I was three or four and a half, which is also not fair. And or what worked for our family dynamic, or that doesn't even necessarily mean it was healthy at the time too. It's different and also, I mean, in an ideal or sorry, I guess not an ideal, but in a broken sinful world, I think that it would be ideal that each generation just gets a little bit better than the previous one. hopefully you're you picked up your dad showed you his strong suits and the things that he struggled with. And you're able to capitalize off of like keeping a heavy focus on those things. Or if it's more helpful for you to not focus on them specifically, then that's fine, too. But. Last episode we talked about that so we can build on it. Yeah, progressive redemptive narrative I think is there like the biblical term for like things are moving in the right direction generationally could go backwards if not, but yeah, I like linear like specific Yeah, yeah, hope is that it be there certain areas you're gonna crush in certain areas You're gonna struggle but but man we were talking about this earlier this week there are areas we feel entitled to especially as God is calling us to be More and more sacrificial the further we go The most selfish day of your life is the day you're standing at the altar about to marry your wife. And then you realize how selfish you were and you get a little bit more sacrificial. And then you have a child. And then you might have a second or a third. So there's just like progressively, God's asking you to be more selfless. But amongst all of that, you have this desire to go back to how a life used to be and then you justify it in any way, shape or form you can. So I'm curious, when have you caught yourself lately saying, hey, I deserve this? What's something in your life right now? Sure. And again, like you said, it's subtle. don't know if I would have, if I hadn't taken the time to think about it, I don't know if I would have thought I was doing this. But end of the day, and by end of the day, I mean post work, post Roman going down. like eight, about eight, I would say about 45 minutes after Roman goes down. So 7.45, 8 p.m. is the moment that my brain hits the don't bother me, don't mess with me, don't ask me to do nothing. Noah is nodding in his head. Everyone listening is nodding in their head. you know what's funny is that ⁓ So when you're single. You don't realize that entitlement sometimes. Maybe a super introspective person would, but like, I don't think I would have realized that I had a lot of entitlement because once I was done with work, I didn't have, I didn't owe anything to anybody. So it was just kind of like, you got to just pick your own path. And so you got to reward yourself for hard days work. ⁓ How you wanted to reward yourself for getting out there and putting in an effort. And you got to choose if you went to serve someone or. participate in something. There's zero days off. Zero obligation. Yes, zero obligation. ⁓ And then you get married and for me I married my best friend. you know I just in your mind you're like this is actually gonna be even better than like even easier than before. We're just gonna both get home and want to do the exact same things all the time and which We did premarital counseling. knew we weren't going to want to do the same thing every single day. hella premarital Lot of premarital counseling. Lot of books. Yeah. Shout out Jed and Katie again. Shout out Jed second time. That's right. But no, I would say end of the day, after I'm done with work, I prep myself. Again, it's all about the prep. Entitlement actually has been, because I've been thinking about it a lot, it's easier for me to get rid of it or kind of curb it as long as I prep. Yeah. If you think about it ahead of time, where your weaknesses are, for me, was just, I had kind of gotten into the rhythm of once Roman goes down to bed and I finish, I prep for the following day after Roman goes down, because that's when I've got my like last reserve or my mind last reserve of energy. And I don't want to, I try to get up again with this new rhythm. I'm trying to get up a little bit earlier to spend some time with Jesus and I don't want 10 tasks that I need to do before I get out the door. So it's one of things that helps me with my ADHD is getting stuff ready the night before. I typically have a little bit more energy at night ⁓ than I do first thing in the morning. yeah, I would say about 7.45, I'm typically done getting coffee ready for the next morning. ⁓ Elly or I will take Leo out. ⁓ I organize the living room. Leo's their dog. Yes, our other kid. Sorry. Yes, our dog. ⁓ not letting anybody else out. ⁓ But I'll organize the living room, like toys, like all the stuff we got out for Roman, little pad that he rolls around on. And I would say once all that's done, that's when I hit that point. it is amazing how quickly I will get irritated, especially if I sit down. Elly and I joke about this all the time. She'll ask me to do stuff right as I sit down. ⁓ Maybe other people can relate, but it'll be I sit down. We have a deep couch. It's not the easiest thing to get out of, especially whenever you're trying to hit the off button for the day. And she'll just look at me and go, you know what that Can you fill up my water, please? Or sorry, can you get my water? And then it's empty. So you have to fill it up. Yeah, just kidding. She's gotten better at that. Her water. Well, you've made fun of her publicly enough. Yes, probably shame, which is the healthiest way to deal with conflict. Yeah. If you want people to change. what about you? I can dive deeper in on that. I've got a lot of thoughts. Yeah, we'll build on it. There's some some other good. I put end of day. Don't burden me. That's good. And I relate totally to that. I do. So I'll pick a couple other examples. We Friday night to Saturday night. We Sabbath. which means we stop rest, worship, delight. We do things we like doing. don't do things we don't have to do. But the craziest thing about when you're a parent is you still have to ⁓ be responsible for your two kids. know? It's Sabbath. I care of yourselves. diapers, helping when they're sick, ⁓ comfort them, prepping meals, all that. But you do put off some of the cleaning and stuff as much as you can. ⁓ We love it. There's a lot of fun things we do at community with just our family's quality time. It's been one of the most important pillars of our family and we'll probably talk more about it in future episodes. But nap time during Sabbath is extra special. So like we will plan out, hey, what you gonna do during that hour and a half during nap time? Because Naomi doesn't nap for an hour and half, but we still have quiet time even if she doesn't sleep. And then Grayson, he's still an hour and a half, two hour napper every day. So that post-lunch, kind of like 1 to 2.30, like what you gonna do? So usually it's me, like I crush a workout because I'm rested, I feel good, I do what I wanna do to workout. Sometimes I don't, sometimes I'll read or do other things, but. What video games you've been getting into I haven't played a video game since my, I probably watched people play video games in college a couple times, so. But we can change that tonight during our sleepover. Yes. So, but yeah, so really. Sabbath that hour and a half, like I feel entitled to that. And then if there's something that gets interrupted, the kids are not napping right, I don't get done in time. So like someone's gotta get the kids, like I want two hours or two and a half hours, cause I wanna work out with a friend or go to a coffee shop to do something. we have to work together of a, hey, who's gonna be home during that time and get the kids up on time. Cause if you don't, they won't go to bed that night. Second one real quick is just vacations ⁓ or trips is what you call them when you have kids. Trips. That's right. You make memories, you just don't rest as much. I'm getting better, but I had to really recalibrate probably, think Michigan this summer, our trip together was the first one I've done since being a dad where I had different expectations. But I still very much have that like, man, I worked crazy hard the last six months for a four day weekend. I can't get any time to myself or I can't do anything I want or this, that or the other. It's tough whenever taking care of yourself is a way you can love your family and you're trying to, but in so doing, you're not taking care of your family. So it's just really, it's this really like stuff like Sabbath. I think Sabbath is a really, really worthwhile practice ⁓ that God intended for you to have. And then it's really frustrating because you'll want to justify it as I'm owed this because God meant for me to have this. And I'm gonna skip ahead a tad on our notes because you bring up a good point. What I'm not saying Yeah, sorry if I skipped. You didn't. You didn't at all. It just reminded me of something I think is really important to make sure that we're clear on. What I'm not saying is you can't ask for help. What not saying is you can't have time off. What I'm not saying is we can't enjoy things. But for the difference for me is there's a difference between working hard as a dad and then needing help or rest. knowing your limitations, all that's good and healthy versus like, hey, I'm doing this expecting a return on my effort. Or I'm doing this expecting a thank you or I'm serving others so I can get mine and get served back later. That's the difference. And a lot of it's a heart posture. A lot of it's how things are communicated or how things are done. And when you proactively ask, so here's the difference between like, hey, I watched the kids last Sabbath during nap time. So like, it's my turn this time. That's manipulative. That's not what we want. But if it's, hey baby, I would really love to connect with my friend and in order to do that, I need a little extra time away from the house. It would be really good for me. Would you be willing to bless me in that way? That's the difference I think we're talking about. Yes. And you know, it's funny because you'll slip into that like mindset of, I did this last time. Because there's a bunch of things, at least in my experience, being married, a house together and stuff like that, or living together where there's tons of things that you kind of trade back and forth. and things like that. And sometimes it works out that way. Sometimes you, mean, Elly and I have certain things that we specifically, ⁓ unless it's an emergency, I don't load dishes. I'll unload dishes. You suck at loading dishes, bro. It will take me an hour and a half to load the dishwasher and it will be stupid because all of the dishes will be completely clean when I put them into the dishwasher. elite. ⁓ can get a lot of dishes in that dishwasher. Which by the way, if you ever want to, the idea of like trading off tasks or like playing that comparison game of how much have I done versus my spouse has done, I would lose that 100 times out of a hundred. My wife can whitewash our whole house by the time I could do two or three of those household tasks. ⁓ it benefits me zero to get into that game. think that. I would, if I were to ever play that game, would be with like extracurriculars, like, she's not doing taxes, I'm gonna do our taxes, that kind of stuff. But you can kind of slip in, right before I came here, I took Leo out this morning and I was like, I Elly's gonna take care of that tonight. But there was no communication, there assumptions. Yes, it was an assumption. And then I caught myself and said, If she asked me, I'm not gonna get mad. And I'm not kidding, 30 seconds later, she said, hey, would you mind just taking Leo out to help me? And then rather than being frustrated, because again, I took him out that morning, could have gotten frustrated about it, with the justification of I took him out this morning, she should have done that. Well, she's taking care of Roman all evening while I'm out here doing this. So like, if you really wanna try and take an apple, it's not apples to apples, there's a lot of nuance to. different workloads and people's capacities. I think comparison's a losing game, both for good and bad. Absolutely. So what we're not saying is you can't ask for help, but communication's key. Having a servant heart, really defaulting to assuming the best in people. And we're going to unpack some of that. But I'm curious, what kind of things do you feel most entitled to after a hard day, or maybe a hard week, or maybe once a year on a vacation? I mean, I'm entitled to this. Yeah, ⁓ I mean... They're all probably gonna be under the same umbrella, but I feel entitled to rest. ⁓ So yeah, after a long day, the reason why I don't wanna be burdened is that I feel like I worked hard all day and I'm tired. ⁓ And I want rest and I feel like I need rest. And so it could be that. ⁓ Alone time, I'm introverted, ⁓ love spending time with Elly. We have a blast together. Different seasons lend to us having more fun together or less fun together. And it's kind of just like a recognition of what the season is. We've had a bit in the last however many months of... what is the phrase we've said, ships passing in the night. Just kinda our work schedules and taking care of Roman to make childcare work just kinda passing back and forth. it probably hasn't been as fun, but I've felt the last like month, us kind of try and start new rhythms together and ⁓ texting throughout the day. ⁓ We had a lot of really funny conversations today, which had a few good conversations these past few evenings. honestly, ⁓ I'm getting derailed here. I mentioned all that. I like my alone time. I love spending time with my wife. I love being alone, ⁓ even if it's just for a little bit. So I say I feel entitled to that. And it's funny, because if I didn't know the term introvert, I don't know if I'd feel entitled to it. I'm just like, well, I'm an introvert. That's how I recharge my battery. So I have a fundamental right to be alone. most people that know me don't think, maybe growing up, didn't think that I was introverted. But I think I'm introverted. That and then uninterrupted free time. That's the biggest one. Like longer chunks? Longer chunks or just like... Honestly, the thing that I will go to war with the most is whether or not I should be interrupted during something. Okay. Because for me, if I know that I can be interrupted, I have a hard time enjoying whatever the thing is. Yeah, yeah. and I love and hate modern technology, I hate that people can get in touch with me all the time. I would be perfectly happy to live in a world, good and bad, like the good and the bad that comes with this, where if something horrible happened, they have to tell me once I get back from doing what I'm doing, not call and say like, something horrible's happened, come as soon as you can. That frustrates me. like, I would say I feel entitled to uninterrupted time. Could be 30 minutes. Could be two hours. ⁓ And I think it's because that's the thing that I desire most. It helps me reset. ⁓ I don't like being on call. It's my least favorite thing. Don't want to be on call for anything. ⁓ At least for, I know that I'm going to have a period that I'm not going to call. And if that gets interrupted. then, mean, vacation. Being able to pick my own adventure. I don't like family vacations where I have to do everything that everyone else is doing. I want to go do what I want to do. Like smoke cigars at the beach. Smoke cigars at the beach, drink bourbon, I'm just kidding. I mean, I do like both of those things, but honestly, just, if it's vacation, I feel entitled to, if I don't wanna do it, I'm not gonna do it. If I wanna do it, I'm going I'm on vacation, my dad used to say that. Yes, I'm on vacation. ⁓ And it can be tough because I grew up where people let me do that. Yeah. Like, that's what vacation was. And I had no responsibilities. Right. So I had, there was an easier freedom for them to say that. I don't think that it was abused. I think it was them blessing me like, please go do something fun that you really enjoy doing. And recognizing that's just not your season anymore. Yes. And I'm very much a, if anybody wants to join, join. If you don't want to join, do what you want to do. Don't join. ⁓ So, ⁓ yeah, I would say that stuff for me. What kinds of things do you feel like are entitled for you? If I'm going too slow to get through all this stuff, let me know. No, you're good. I'll jump ahead and this will be great. not talking at nighttime. Like I feel entitled. You know, you do the whole like kids get down. I connected for a few minutes with Madeline. I did the dishes. So that could be watching a show. don't want to talk. I don't want to watch talk when the game's on. I don't want to talk about the grocery list. And it's not even like quality stuff. It's just like chores. Go ahead. mean, I Responsibilities. I don't want to talk about responsibilities. That's all right. What made you laugh today? Like I want to talk about that. Yes. I don't want to talk about. ⁓ the dresser we got to find on Facebook marketplace and if we should offer 50 or $40. I don't want to talk, I've earned a break. ⁓ Sometimes I'll go work out because I just need to be alone and sometimes I get interrupted with the monitor. like, man, now I gotta go comfort one of our kids. I've got a weighted vest on, I'm trying to fricking run on the treadmill. It's like you're in my brain. Yeah, we're the same person. So there's that. ⁓ I feel entitled to a non-chaotic dinner. I just want to either cook dinner or enjoy the worst time of the day in my household is. right when I get home from work until after the kids eat. Bedtime's not terrible. We've got a pretty good bedtime routine. I enjoy it. It's sweet sometimes. There's some sweet, sweet stories being read and snuggles. That's great. man, that and bath time, depending on how wild my kids, my kids just like take their clothes off and they start acting crazy, man. They get amped up. And yeah, so sometimes I feel entitled to like, I go into the office, it's about an hour away once a week on Tuesdays. And like, if I got to do bath time on Tuesdays ever, man, I'm tired. Like I just feel entitled to. skipping that but I can't. You know, we, I can ask for help but overall I need to contribute as much or more as my wife. yeah, those are some of the like times of the day specifically that I just feel entitled to not, and I don't really get anything, just not have to keep serving. Sure. And I wear out. I'm not a night person, dude. Like I'll do whatever you need at 6 a.m., dude, but by 7 30 I'm crashing. I'm crashing. So, ⁓ hey, let me frame up just ⁓ a couple things here and we'll ask some more questions. Entitlement, what it does is it turns our love into transactional, like a contract. So again, going back to business, I'll do this for you if you do this for me. That's what a contract literally is. It's a trade-off. that's what this is. It's I'm do this now or I already did this and now I'm cashing out. We're not in that business because God's love for us, we know this is covenantal. And covenantal is unconditional, it's lavishing, it's over the top, it's not expecting anything in return, but it's two-way commitment to one another. So we are covenanted to our bride, we have a covenant as husbands to take care of our household, we have covenantal love covering us by our Heavenly Father. So that's what we're talking about here is, ⁓ you know, we have to make sure that we recognize ⁓ the positive of covenantal love giving us the power and the authority and the, again, like if you're just aware of your thoughts, like, man, now I know this is important, I can prioritize it and you see God work. But there's a flip side because if you don't, if you operate in a contractual type of way, it damages the household. It damages the home. It becomes, now you're easily irritated because your reward got interrupted or it's not enjoyable and it's damaging your relationship with your kids or your wife or your neighbors or. your responsibilities, you're neglecting around the house. You withdraw because you don't feel appreciated. You don't feel seen. A lot of the times it's just pouting. I start to suddenly pout. I hope someone notices and when they don't, I get even more upset because it just reinforces the narrative and act like a six year old. Are you the type of person to call it out to your own wife or like whatever? Like I'm pouting? What do mean? Because I'll tell Elly that I'm pouting and that nothing's gonna change for a little bit. and that I'm like, Hey, just so you're aware, I'm furious or like, I'm so irritated and my mood is not getting better right now. I will try to get back to normal. I usually go for a walk. Madeline knows I'm either like, I'm pouting or had a hard day or I just genuinely enjoy go for it. she probably doesn't know which one it is half the time, which is kind of funny, but no, I just want to be alone. So no, I'm not as emotionally mature as you in that way. I don't communicate it well. I don't know if that's correct. You keep a mental scoreboard. So you're talking about this. I took the dog out. It's your turn. I did bath time yesterday. Why should I have to do two days in a row? Or you serve, but there's, gosh, there's strings attached. I think about hunting season. So I feel entitled. I grind. You know Stanley when he talks about pretzel day, he's like 364 days. That's right. But there's a magical about 10 weeks or 10 day stretch in the fall when the deer rut and the big bucks are on the move in their day lighting in central Indiana. And I'm like, it's not pretzel day, it's the rut. And I just, you I did all this so I could cash out and we've gotten better at that. We've communicated. It's a priority. I love how we get our whole family involved in that, but Gosh dang, sometimes I try and use that to my advantage. yeah, our paper popper quotes of the day, ⁓ another one from Habits of the Household. It's a little bit of a different angle. ⁓ Justin Early says, ⁓ become what we repeatedly do. The habits we form in our homes shape not just our actions, but our loves. So again, we become what we repeatedly do. We understand this in a way of trying to be shaped in a positive way. So if we continue to do this, like I think they say ⁓ for your brain, ⁓ you wire together, fire together, wires together. So if you do it consistently, it fires consistently, you wire a new pathway in your brain, it becomes a habit. So those are positive ways. So that's the good news about habits. But it's also, there's a shadow side of that. When you do the negative things repeatedly, your brain begins to wire that habit together and you suddenly begin to slip into doing that as well. So... ⁓ Yeah, the habits we form in our homes shape not just our actions, but our loves. It shapes how we're able to love people. So Reese, I'm curious, how have you seen entitlement become not just something that happens from time to time, but maybe a habit? And ⁓ how do we keep this from becoming, it's gonna happen from time to time as a one-off thought, but how do we keep this from slipping into being habitual? ⁓ Yeah, I thought about this one for a little while. What is the term like cognizant? I would say intentional thought. Sure. Is a great way. I believe that prayer actually works. So I would say a couple of things would be intentional thought. to mind that you are regularly feeling entitled or if you notice yourself regularly feeling entitled or just have like a checkpoint like every so often. When you know that it's about to come, right? Yeah. So like same thing is almost anything that you'd ever be held accountable for just like that you struggle with like know your triggers, know your seasons, things that set you off and just kind of evaluate with yourself on a again, whatever regular for you is weekly, you could have different things that you check in daily, different things you check in weekly. I'm not trying to make your whole life like a checklist of am I feeling entitled. But could be 10 seconds. Yes, it could be 10 seconds. And then the part of what I put down was how I've seen it become a habit. I mentioned when I was single, I didn't have any resistance towards my reward. I don't think I've. saw it as entitled, I saw it as available. Like I had the availability and the option to do the things that I wanted to do and never got out of that. When you get married one day, you don't just magically flip the switch that I'm no longer, I don't always have the availability the way that I had the availability. No matter how many times someone tells you that until you're in it, you're like, you don't fully grasp it. and I hope I never make it sound like I've been. Never accused of this, but probably my own critic in this. Sometimes I feel like when I talk about marriage, I make it sound like your fun's about to end. It's not. But your discipline and the way that you choose to... You're gonna be challenged. There's gonna be things that, honestly, you wouldn't challenge yourself in that's gonna be a blessing down the road. It's gonna force you to ⁓ It's ⁓ short-term pain for a long-term gain rather than short-term pleasure for... long-term pain if that makes sense. ⁓ And especially just like the first few years. I'm learning all these things about myself that I didn't know because I wasn't ⁓ under pressure. I was the master of my time. I mean, maybe not like legitimately, but I thought that I was the master of my time and had the availability to do stuff. So I would say, It became a habit because I didn't have any resistance towards it and then now I do. And Ronald Rohheiser talks about in Sacred Fire, first third of life is finding your life. Second third is ⁓ losing your life. So like we're in this season of like, man, I just found what I wanted to be and my passion is what I'm good at. And I've physically grown into maturity and found my bride. And now it's like, ⁓ crap, now I have to learn how to like give all that out for the sake of love. As Christ loved the church. And to your point, ⁓ praise God, our wives help us do that by being the mirror that showed the smudge on our face that was there the entire time. And hopefully are the people that are picking us up whenever we're down and just sharing life with us. And how much more our kids as they get older? Again, too, it shows like, man, when you lose your life, Jesus says you'll find it. When I lose my life by... Loving sacrificially my kids. I'm actually now finding life because now I realize the meaning of life's not about me and ⁓ I'm looking forward to that. I'm growing in that I'm growing more in it. I'm trying to find more joy in the process ⁓ because here's the thing for me is ⁓ I'll do these things like I may not be happy to do it like I will do the bath time there's some nights I enjoy being present sometimes I don't so but I want to take that thought captive and ⁓ really the real short last thing I want to kind of set up for us is You know, the gospel, like, the good news of Jesus directly confronts this because two things. One, we're given everything. So entitlement means you earned it. Everything we've been given, we have, we've been given. That little boy I have to wash in the bathtub every night or every other night. We don't bathe our kids every night. Every third night sometimes. Once a week. Once a week. That's a gift, man. My wife, I need to process through stuff with even though I'm tired. What a gift. This household that I don't want to clean, what a gift. This job that's a grunt, what a gift, man. If you do want to play the comparison game and won't make your, and you have the ability to not make yourself feel guilty or ashamed of what you have, play the comparison game the opposite way. Yeah. There are people who are barren. They don't get, they don't get to wake up in the middle of the night and. deal with that kid that they desperately wish that they got to deal with in the middle of the night. go to a third world country, I've been to Uganda, Nicaragua, some of these people are smart, or if not smarter, work harder than me, and yet they have so much less, they don't have the opportunity. know? ⁓ Looking at it kind of more vocationally, and like ability to ⁓ gain wealth. But yeah, so like you're given everything, ⁓ you're just asked to steward it well. And then the second one is like, actually being a servant is where life is found. When Jesus is like the greatest among you are those who serve, you gotta lose your life to find it. Actually serving is like where there's ultimate life. So why would I not wanna step into if I trust Jesus' promise and commandment there to serve so that I can be the greatest in His kingdom? So I can experience the good life as He says it is. And I love this scripture that you shared with us. I'm gonna read it slowly. It comes from Luke 17. I spent some time this morning Because I don't remember this scripture, ⁓ But Jesus just kind of, it seems kind of random if you read Luke 17, he says, suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. So you're landowner and you have servants that are working for you. Indentured servants, they're paying off a debt. That's what's happening ⁓ in this situation in the first century. And will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, come along now and sit down to eat? So he's worked all day. Come here, man. Kick up your feet. Get you something to eat and drink. You've worked hard enough today. Jesus says, no, won't he rather say, prepare my supper, get yourself ready, and wait on me while I eat and drink. And then after that, you may eat and drink. So it's not like he's totally neglected, but the job's not done yet, right? Verse nine, will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, then that's just a question. They kind of know the answer to it. The answer's no. Verse 10, so you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, we are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty. I mean, that's us at the end of the day. Like we still, we still, like we've only done our duty. We want to come in after a long day in the office, but we still got to make the meal for our kids. We still need to emotionally support our wives. We still need to be the ones that tuck our kids in bed at night and have a good attitude and don't hold anything against them. I mean, that's us at the end of the day. ⁓ Like we still, we still, like we've only done our duty. We want to come in after a long day in the office, but we still to make the meal for our kids. We still need to emotionally support our wives. We still need to be the ones that tuck our kids in bed at night and have a good attitude and don't hold anything against them. Good dads go to bed tired. They go to bed tired, six days a week. Good dads go to bed tired. They go to bed tired, six days a week. Shout out, Jed. Even on Sabbath, a lot of times I'm tired because I'm still a dad. But six days a week, man, you go to bed tired. It reminds me, and you reminded me of this about a year ago, Kobe Bryant, 2009. So I'm talking like Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant, Aaron. RIP. RIP. Love you, Legends never die, Kobe. A reporter asks them, they're up 2-0 in the finals. Hey, Kobe, you excited to be up 2-0? Going back home or something to try and wrap this thing up? And Kobe kind of interrupts the guy and he goes, Shout out, Jed. Even on Sabbath, a lot of times I'm tired because I'm still a dad. But six days a week, man, you go to bed tired. It reminds me, and you reminded me of this about a year ago, Kobe Bryant, 2009. So I'm talking like Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant, Aaron. RIP. RIP. Love you, Legends never die, Kobe. A reporter asks them, they're up 2-0 in the finals. Hey, Kobe, you excited to be up 2-0? Going back home or something to try and wrap this thing up? And Kobe kind of interrupts the guy and he goes, Why would I be excited? Job's not finished. Job's not finished. Why would I be excited? It's one of the best clips I've ever listened to. He looks so irritated. So irritated, so straight-faced. But when I read the scripture, that's the first thing I thought of, of like, why would I sit down and like have a glass of wine and eat a meal and kick my feet up? Job's not finished. I've only done what God's invited me to do. Why would I be excited? Job's not finished. Job's not finished. Why would I be excited? It's one of the best clips I've ever listened to. He looks so irritated. So irritated, so straight-faced. But when I read the scripture, that's the first thing I thought of, of like, why would I sit down and like have a glass of wine and eat a meal and kick my feet up? Job's not finished. I've only done what God's invited me to do. And when we can be servants of the Lord and we realize there's life found in that and we have... responsibility to steward and to enjoy and to delight in and to ⁓ put our efforts toward just utilizing what God's given us, man, ⁓ it takes a lot different... ⁓ it gives us a very different perspective in my opinion. you know, entitlement says, I've deserved this. The gospel says everything is grace given by God. Nothing's earned. Nothing ⁓ was acquired. Everything was given. And, you know, like ⁓ Yeah, the thing that I'm trying to process through is like, what does it mean just to steward? Stewardship just comes to mind for this. if I still have a responsibility at the end of the day or the week or the month, it doesn't matter how entitled I feel, how does God want me to utilize these gifts? One, to enjoy, and then two, to get the most out of them as He wants. So last thing here, really, Reese, before we kind of start wrapping this up, how does entitlement show up? I'm curious because it doesn't just show up in what we do. Like I mentioned, it shows up in our attitudes and our emotions. Like we might do what we're supposed to, but people are going to know we're a little irritated or overwhelmed or want to hold it against them. ⁓ How does entitlement show up in your tone, your patience, your presence? And then how do you see that impact your home? I have found that I am much shorter with people. I think most people would say I love to have a good conversation. Especially, and if you used to that, ⁓ it seems odd whenever I'm not interested. So like, this will happen at the gym every now and again. I say entitlement title, it shows up a lot more at home than it does ⁓ at work. Mainly because I'm more tired and think that I've earned whatever it is that I've earned. ⁓ Which funny because then you're. Family is the one that actually gets the worst version of you. it sucks, man. So we can talk more about that at some point. But shorter with people, this happened at the gym. I'll have gone from one thing to the next, the next, the next, then I've got a 15 minute gap before either my next client comes in. a personal trainer for anyone who doesn't know. ⁓ I'll be like, sick. I can heat up my food. ⁓ and continue the podcast that I was probably listening to earlier that day. And there will be somebody, and you know what? Sometimes people just don't read cues. No situational awareness. That doesn't mean I got to treat them poorly. Sure. And I would say, I don't know if they feel like I'm treating them poorly. I think I'm pretty good at masking it. But I'll get some RBF. I'll look irritated whenever they walk in the door. And then I'll normally ease into the conversation afterwards. I would say that. I'll give them short answers. It could be anybody. It doesn't have to be someone at work, but shorter answers. ⁓ I'll make it clear that I don't want to be talking to this person. I don't want to be doing this. ⁓ That'll happen at the house a lot. I'll begrudgingly say yes to doing something and then just make it look like I'm bending over backwards to do something ⁓ for Elly ⁓ or something that I was asked to do for Roman, but I... feel like it's lot of the stuff that I've already mentioned at this point, but... ⁓ I don't know how it impacts my home. It's like I said, it means that my home gets the worst version of me or like the lesser version of me than my workplace, which I never want that to be the case. and I have talked about that a bit. ⁓ it's like a balance between being authentic and that's the big thing. It's not that you can't be tired. Yeah. Because I would say that half the reason that I get or like I try and push my entitlement or like what I deserve at the end of the day is me incorrectly trying to show how tired I am. Yeah. ⁓ convincing someone, convincing someone that I worked so hard today that I need this and that they should give it to me instead of just trusting that you're seen. Yes. And you know what? You can literally just say, Hey, I'm totally willing to do that. ⁓ to be honest with you, I'm a little tired. I want you to know, like if I look tired while I'm doing it, it's not cause I don't like Not that I don't care or that I'm frustrated that you asked me. I'm just tired if there could be a spot for some resting And I some help. I need a break. Yeah, and I know that you're working hard too. Yeah. Like acknowledging the other side because like I said for every tired day that I've had, Elly's had a tired day too. Sure. So ⁓ I know I bring it back to the household a lot, but just anybody. You could assume that assume that you don't know anybody's story. ⁓ You don't know how tired they are. You don't know what they feel entitled to, what they're going through. So ⁓ yeah, I would say that's how I feel how about you. I'll be real brief. And then I want you to talk a little bit about the heart beneath entitlement. Mine is just ⁓ I'm not present. I look ahead. So like, again, I feel entitled to the weekend, the ⁓ after the kids go down. You know, we joke half the time. just trying to get the kids to ⁓ And so I'm not present. So I'm looking ahead a few hours or days or whatever it might Because I feel entitled to that instead of again, hey, the job's not done. It's not finished yet. I'm only doing what my master told me to do and there's life found in nourishment and joy. yeah, just a lot of times I'm just not where my feet are at. My mind's not there. anyways, yeah, bring us home. We'll wrap up. We got to keep it under an hour. I'm sure that I have no idea what time the fourth. Yeah, okay. That's not terrible. We'll it under an hour. ⁓ We got the fourth round of the I was waiting for you to say like an hour and 40 or something like that. Yeah, kind of the heart behind entitlement because some people like real simple. I like peeling back the layers. So I would say entitlement often comes from things like exhaustion, feeling unseen. That could be by a friend, at work, spouse, wanting relief. Again, lot of these things are just like natural human. Dependencies, emotions, feeling a certain type of way. So wanting relief because you're working so hard and then wanting to be appreciated. again, it's kind of want to have that concept. It sounds great. Like audience of one sounds great. I try to live that out as best I can. But sometimes it's just like, man, really wish that I could get a thank you or that someone would recognize that I'm. that I went the extra mile. I'm doing more now than I ever have, but I'm getting less recognition than I ever have. Which is such a sign of growth, by the way. Because the things that used to be special are now ordinary because you've become a different type of him. I didn't really think about this until recently, but yeah, can be the hard part about not getting recognition or anything like that is that you are doing, sorry, I'll speak to my own experience, but. if you're husband and father, you're doing more than you ever have, assuming that you're trying to put in the effort. So in my mind, I'm as exhausted as I've ever been because I'm actually doing the right things. ⁓ So that's kind of stuff that it can, those are some of the things that kind of creep in the root reason behind why you might feel entitled. ⁓ We wrote down a little key insight, which is that you don't feel entitled or we don't feel entitled because we're evil, we feel entitled because we're empty. Entitlement comes from feeling like your cup or just kind of your life. You've kind of drained yourself of everything and you need to be filled back up. So you're empty. That's kind of where the entitlement starts to, the false self starts to come through. Yeah, I agree. And I think what it looks like is as we've talked about needing to feel safe, seen, secure and soothed, instead of like acting out like a child, just going to our father as their child and say, I need you. empty. Instead of, deserve this, it's Father, I need you. And those some of those breath prayers or taking thoughts captive. I need the energy. I need to trust that you see me. I need to trust that there's joy here. And those breath prayers throughout the day, as well as saying, pray it up to start your day, end your day, stuff like that, allows you to know, like, hey, I am seen in this. am, you know, God is the one that can soothe me. don't... have to go to X, Y, or Z at the end of the day to be the one that soothes me. Yeah, and you can ask for help from God and from other people in that place of exhaustion. Reese, let's do this. As we're just wrapping up our time together, ⁓ give a few just practical questions. ⁓ Gentlemen watching, dads watching can be kind of asking themselves and through this week. ⁓ Okay. Yeah. ⁓ I would say got a couple of them down here This week. I would just take the time process think where am I expecting something instead of receiving everything as grace? Yeah So again, whole concept is that everything you've been given is it is a mercy is a grace is a blessing Where are you expecting something instead of receiving that as grace and then number two would be? ⁓ What would it look like to replace entitlement with gratitude you'll find? ⁓ for people to do gratitude journals before where they do something as simple as waking up in the morning, writing down three things they're grateful for. ⁓ I've heard it really change a lot of people's perspectives. ⁓ also goes with, if you ever watched Jocko Willink, goes with the concept of good anytime something happens, whether it seems great or terrible or anything in between, it's just. Good, it's either something that you get to grow through or it's an immediate circumstantial blessing. It could be anything. So what would it look like to replace entitlement with gratitude? ⁓ And then, or you want to go through practical examples right after that? Or you want me to go through? Let's just kind of close out with this. Final word, I would encourage you, ⁓ don't measure your life on what you've earned. And I know I like to control stuff. I want to feel like I've earned this, but. Man, just instead like remember what you've been given. It's okay just to accept good things, not to always have to prove yourself or earn. You know, like we're not a father who needs to extract anything or take things from our family or prove anything from our family. We're sons who've been given all we need in our father. And I think as you reflect on those questions that lead to like gratitude and a place of humility, realizing we need mercies, that's my final encouragement is just like, think we need to become dads more... ⁓ realizing we've received instead of wanting to earn from people. anyways. Does that sound good, man? You want to bless the folks and pray for the listeners? We'd love that. Jesus, just want to thank you for this day, the opportunity to get to do this with these two fellas. And God, I just pray that as entitlement creeps in, you would make us aware of it, that you would give us your spirit to confront it and to just have a humility about us. serve people well. I think of the fact that Jesus had every right to be entitled to so many things, and He chose not to be, and He chose to submit ⁓ to His human life, Lord, and I pray that You would help us mimic that. I pray that You would empower us to do that, to love others well, ⁓ and to receive everything that we have as a blessing, and just have gratitude for that. I pray that Your name would be praised, that You would be glorified through... ⁓ our lack of entitlement and our increasing of gratitude. And I pray that over all the people that listen to this. We love you so much, Lord. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for tuning in. Have a great week.