Passion, Purpose, Plan

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You're listening to the Sage Hill podcast with Dr. Chip Dodd. Sage Hill is a social impact organization that helps people see who they're made to be so they can do what they're made to do. Welcome to Evening with Sage Hill. I'm Stephen James. I'm the executive director of Sage Hill Counseling. So this is a monthly gathering that we do most often on the first or second Thursday of the month, sometimes on the first Thursday of the month. If you're not on the Sage Hill email list, you can go to one of our Sage Hill websites and subscribe, and you'll get updates on when we do this. And we just pick kind of normal life topics, and talk about life. And so, I'll talk for thirty, forty minutes. Maybe fifty minutes, depending if I get on a roll. And we'll stop, and then there's this like class participation part at the end where we talk, and you ask questions, and it really starts being like jazz. So, so it's there's some participation that's invited at the end, and we hope that you would join in with that. So, so glad to see some new faces, glad to see some old friends. Tonight, I'm gonna talk about New Year's resolutions. So let's talk about New Year's resolutions. Like, what comes to mind for you? What's the big one? Health. Working out. Working out. Yeah. Health. Losing weight. Right? Who who made, by a show of hands or a nod of the head, who made a New Year's resolution about something to do with your body? Who who got a new gym membership? Good for you. You'll be I know you'll probably stick with it though. Like, I know you. You know, how many of us will think we'll keep those past next Wednesday? I don't think I will. Like, I've I've got a lot of history of making promises to myself that I don't keep. And and I think tonight we're gonna talk about that idea of of what does it mean to be resolved? What does it mean to to Like, how do you how do you really If you want to do something, and you want to make a change, like, how do you really do it? You know? And then we're gonna talk about, like, how that doesn't work. And then we're gonna talk about maybe a way that it could work. Right? So it's a little confusing. It's gonna make sense at the end. I got my kids are taking Latin right now, my youngest too, and they're like Latin nerds. And and and Latin is like the old language. My kids keep telling me it's a dead language. They say, how do you pronounce this word? And they say, it doesn't matter because it's a dead language. I think they're getting out of something. I think they're getting out of something. But it's this old language that we derived a lot of language from, a lot of meaning from. Right? So this is really interesting to me when I get into it. The Latin word for resolution, resolverre. Resolverre. Okay? And it means to loosen or to pay. Like, if I'm in debt to somebody and I do this, I'm free. Right? So we get the word resolve. We get the word resolution from the word to be free, to loosen ourselves. Year's resolution? No. No. How do you think think about bondage. I think about binding myself. Right? So we've taken this idea of of to resolve. Right? Or to resolve, is really what the word means. Okay. To figure it out, and we've turned it from a freedom word, like so often we do, into a bondage word. I think that's fascinating. And how often in our lives are the things that we think we're doing to set us free end up bonding us. You know? There's so many things that, like, in the beginning stages, feel really freeing. Feel like they take the edge off. They take our mind off things. They, make us feel top of the world. They take away our anxieties. Right? And then sooner or later, those things end up owning us. No matter how hard we try to have them not own us, they own us harder. The harder we try to quit, the more they bind us. Right? I just so this one, that idea of the word means to be loosened and be set free to pay, like, to pay yourself out of debt. And we've turned it into a bondage of self will. That's what humans do, though. Right? I mean, some of y'all probably does. Some of y'all probably, like, self actualized, you know, and and, free all the time. And you don't worry about other people think about you at all. You know? And when you look in the mirror, you look at yourself and you go, damn. That's good. Right? You you know, you do that. And, you don't count calories. And when you hear that maybe people are talking about you behind your back, you assume they're saying good things. Like, there's some of those, some of y'all are in here that do that. The rest of us try really hard to use good things to make ourselves okay, and then beat the crap out of ourselves later when it doesn't work. And we hold judgements against ourselves. You know, and so if you've made a New Year's resolution, my hope for you tonight is that you'll leave here with an idea, with a new hope and a new freedom around what it means to be resolved. You know, that you won't leave here with more I shoulds. But you leave here with I can or I may. Right? Or I want. So so off, we step in and we go, I will, I want, right? I need. And then we say, I must. It must be up to me. Right? So resolutions go wrong right off the bat because we make them about us. And we lean on our own strength and our own skill and our own power. Right? We make our own plans. And we think that if I make the plan first, and then I execute the plan, I'll get the result. Okay. A friend of mine went to, West Point. I heard that's a pretty good school, right, West Point. And and he did some he learned how to do war planning. And he said the army, they're really strict about making plans. You make battle plans, and you plan them out. And you know what's and you think through all the things you need, and you line up everything, making the plan. And then he says, you make your plan, and then the only thing you know if you make your plan is exactly the one way it's not gonna go. That no plan survives first contact with the enemy. It's like, But this is how we do it. We make a plan, we make a resolution, and we join the gym, or we throw away the cigarettes, or we, call our financial planner, or we, get a new Bible study, or we come to Evening with Sage Hill, or we whatever we do, right? And then we say, Well, I'm gonna work my plan as best as I can think, and then I'll get this thing over here. And, again, there's one of you in here that does that, has done it. Right? You just haven't figured out. You haven't bitten off anything big enough yet that it hadn't worked. And you will. I hope. You know? I really do hope. Because this really is not badness. If you hear me saying this is badness, I'm not saying that. I'm saying this is what we do. And this is necessary and and important part of us learning something really, really import important. That we're not God. And that we can't account for all the problems, and we're not our own solution. And no matter how hard I think and how smart I am, I'm not gonna be able to figure it all out. And if I come to be defeated in that, then I've actually opened myself up to something new. You know? And I think everybody in here has has experienced this already. You know? They're doing some work next door. And usually when you do construction on a building and you have neighbors, you tell them. Like, hey. We're gonna do some construction. The lady didn't tell us. And I was having a bad day anyway, so I went over and told the guy what I thought of that. I started out being nice. I asked him if he could stop. And when he said no, on my way out the door, kind of like an adolescent, loud enough that, like a teenager will say it under my breath, but I want you to hear it, but I didn't really say it. Right? I I described him as an orifice of death. It's a part of the body that excretes things. And, I'm not proud of this. But I had my plan, and I went over and thought I'm gonna be nice. I'm gonna tell this guy, hey, could you please not do this, sir? We're trying to do some things that's important. And he didn't care. Right? And so, oh, okay. So my true colors came out. And I raged. Raged at the guy. And I came in and, raged in here for a minute. Made phone calls. Raged. Right? Oh, not okay, and I'm okay with that. Like, I know that doesn't define me. But even now, like, I tried to do with that guy what I do in my marriage. I had a plan. I'll go over. And if I'm nice, he'll stop what he's doing, and everything will be okay. It didn't work in my marriage, and it didn't work in here. So it didn't have to be a New Year's resolution. It's like, whatever you've planned to do ends up being your bondage. Oh, I came here to be encouraged though, Stephen. That's such a downer. Yeah. It is. It's also the doorway to freedom. Here's how. Because once I recognize that this thing keeps leading me back to my best thinking, You know, then I I wake up to the idea that I need help. And the stronger you are, and the smarter you are, and the more moral you are, the longer it takes for you to ask for help. The more intellect you have, the more will power you have, and the more goodness you have, the more you'll depend upon yourself. Every time. Every, every time. So if you've got a high IQ, and you just like being a nice person, and you're really driven, like you're a physician, then, it might take a big something to get you to ask for help. There's other professions, but that's the easy one to pick on. So so if you think you're smart, if you're really hardworking, and you're really a good person, you're in real trouble, because you're gonna be the last person in the room to ask for help. Our willingness to ask for help opens the door for something that is that can be done for us that we can't do for ourselves. I can go to you and say, hey, I need help. Can you can you help me with this? Like, and she can say, I can help with this part. Although, she has no boundaries, she can say, Yeah, I'll do it all. I'll say, Great, thank you. Oh, codependency, the great salvation. You don't think about it? I think about it that way. Yeah. I mean, if you'll work hard to make me okay, then I'll really be okay. So that's the trap we get in in, that we get into. And it's a great time of year, because the calendar turns a page, and we bring with it all of our hope of all of our unfinished business. And it's like, this year will be different. This year will be different. This year, maybe this year will be the year. Maybe this year we can Right? And I think that's really, really, really good. Like that thing in you, that hope, the biggest human problem we have is hope. Because we never can stop moving into what it can be. Y'all get that? Without hope, life's easy. It's called stoicism. It is what it is. Right? But hope's a huge problem. That's really good. But if it's hope on your own strength, you're in a lot of trouble. And that's really good too. Because it leads you to ask for help. If we really wanna be loosed, and we really wanna be set free, we can't start with the plan. Plan's the last thing we need to start with. What do I start with? That's what you're supposed to say. What do I start with? Thank you. You start with this word. Passion. And passion is a full hearted participation and a willingness to do something that's painful for something that's worth more than the pain. I'm willing to go through this difficult thing for the idea that it could be better. It could be different. No pain, no gain. Right? Which is true. You know, that's true. Very little side, I don't like the process. They're like like I I I can appreciate the outcome of the rough edges coming off and But I don't like it. And if you say you like it, I really want to find out what you're smoking. Really. Like, really. Because I've tried other things, that didn't work. I always wore off. If you like the process, Of no pain, no gain. Yeah. You're crazy. You're, sadistic. Or masochistic. Which one? Masochistic? Which one likes the pain? Masochistic. Thank you. Woah. Here, that's interesting. You know that. That was a test, Thomas. Okay. So passion is willing to walk through pain for something greater than pain. So where do we get passion from? Any ideas? Heartache. Heart. Heart. That our passion comes from our broken hearts. That the only thing worth caring about are things that's broken our hearts. One, so you can't start the plan. You gotta start with passion. And if you don't have passion, there's something you're doing that you've not noticed what's broken your heart. Like you don't know your own story. You know? Because if you know your own story, and you know what broke your broke is broken your heart, you've got the beginning of something that you're willing to walk through pain for, in order to have something greater than the pain. Resolutions don't work because we don't start with the right thing. Another way to say is, what am I willing to lose at? What's worth doing even if I lose? That's the kind of stuff we're looking for in our lives. What are the heartaches of our lives that remind us it's worth doing? You know? A lot of the stuff I do professionally is birthed out of my own heartache. Like, the things I'm really interested in with people. Like addiction, and sexual trauma, and heartache, and despair, and grief. Like, that didn't come out of a book. It comes out of life. You know? So if you want to know how to, actually at the end of the year, have your resolution come true, you've got to start with this. Which means you've got to start with what broke your heart. Because there's gonna be days where it's really hard, and if you don't have a what for that backs it up, it's just gonna be your ego, or your comfort that's pushing you forward. I mean, that won't sustain you. Because wherever you set out to go remember, army planning. Wherever you set out to go, you're going to end up some place else. Every time. Okay. Starts with passion. And in the passion, you discover your purpose. So you got to go before you know. Oh, that's good. That's a chip godism. That's something Chip would say. You got to go before you know. And a lot of us want to know the answer before we set off. Right? So a lot of us never set off. A lot of us create real safe plans, real small lives, and we never step off into the mystery of what could be. Because we know intuitively, I don't know where this is going. And I've lived enough life because I'm older than 18 old to know my heart's gonna be broken along the way. I'm gonna be disappointed and likely embarrassed at some point in this. So I'll sit on my couch. I'll watch another episode of Stranger Things. So you gotta you gotta go before you know, and you do it. You'll figure out more what it's about. More what you're about. More what you care about. More what you think. More what you need. More what your dreams are really pushing you towards. And then your heart breaks even more. But if you got a big why, it's worth doing. It'll keep you going for a little while. You need other people to help you. Okay? And then, after passion, after purpose, then you make your plan for that day. Like the best plans only last one day. Because tomorrow's a different day. And I'm huge into strategic planning. I work with lots of companies and organizations, and we do strategic planning. And we set big ten year goals, and five year goals, and one year goals. We have quarterly things that we do to make sure we're on track for the goals. And, no. You redo that every year. You make a new 10 goal every year. Right. So, like, your plan's like, what am I doing today? What's this one day at a time? Like, how am I going to do this today? And, most humans can can sustain something for about twenty five minutes. And if you got ADHD like me, it's about twenty five seconds. And then you're off to the next idea, the next dream, the next vision, or the next distraction, or the next hyper focus. And so, like, make your plan. Yeah. But do it like today. What do I need today that's going to move me into, not toward, but into more of this? Hear the directional difference? That we're always trying to move to some place off in the distance instead of into more of what we're made of. It's, most of the time, already there in our life. Our relationships, people we love, things we're called to serve in. Like, they're already there. So that's your plan. This is your plan. What's the one thing I can do today that's going to move me into more of this? So if you don't know what that is, it's like, well, I'm I'm going to move into something to help me figure that out. Great. That's awesome. Good job. If you're already on the inkling of you know what it is, then you move more deeply into it, which actually gonna require more risk. And if you're already in it, you move more deeply into it, which usually requires more intolerance. You put up with less. You're fed up. Chip wants to start a club called the Fed Up Club, for people who are fed up, but can't quit. It's like, that's a small club. Yeah. Probably would be. A lot of The fed up part, that's easy. But that won't quit, that's small. Because a lot of people get fed up and quit. Resign themselves. You know? So you think about the plans. What do I need to do today to move into this so I can live out this? So this becomes I gotta love this. A process. Are two c's in process or one c? One c. Thank you. It's pretty cool, I think. And, there's there's something that's really necessary in the process called surrender. Right? And surrender is, I accept that this thing's going to turn out how this thing turns out. Though I give everything I have to it. Right? I give all that I have to it, knowing that's not going to be enough, and it's going to turn out how it turns out. And I've come to trust and believe that that's going to be better than I could dream of in the first place. That's more than I could ask or imagine. And whatever my ideas were about marriage, twenty two years ago, I'm so glad that didn't come true. Because who I've learned I'm married to is so much more of a woman than I ever saw then. And what it what I Who I've become in it, and the security I found through it, to heal and grow and risk and It's like, God. I didn't think it could be that. It's like, that's that's surrender. Once I give up on trying to make it the way I want it to be, and I move into it anyway, and start to trust it's going to be what it's going to be, and that's better for me than what I wanted. But it's going to be heartache. And it's going to be exhaustion. There's going to be rest. And there's going to be, like, I wish If I knew it was going to be this hard, I wouldn't have started. Anybody ever had that moment? Like, if I knew it was going to be this hard, I wouldn't have gotten out of bed. Because the process teaches us like, this is not going to go how I thought, but might it go better than I dreamed? Might it go better than I dreamed? And I think it does. I think it can. But we have to be willing to let go of our will. Right? And a lot of times people confuse the word passion with will. My will be done. Resolve means to be free. It means to be set free. Which means you have to give yourself to something that's worth doing. Not just a thing that's gonna make you feel better about you. That's where most of our New Year's resolutions fail. Because they're promises we make to ourselves to work really hard, to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. I got more money, if I lose weight, if I whatever. I hope that you like you. I really do. I hope you you really love who you are. Because you're worth loving. But most of that's gonna come from other people. That's the p that binds all these together are other people. Like none of that happens without other people. So we gotta have people to pull any of this off. And the kind of people we really need are people who are doing this in their own life too. That's what we really need. And so so if you wanna live in passion, you you gotta stop looking for winners. You gotta start hanging out with losers. Because the losers are only people that know how to do this. Yay! Freedom! Like Napoleon Dynamite people. Thank you, you know? And if you're not ready for that, it's okay. You can join 24674. That's an old reference. What's a new reference? What's the Are you looking at me? Because you're younger than I am. What's the Teen Wolf movie with the vampires? Twilight. Twilight. You can join Twilight. It's still Thank you. Is that still old? Yeah. Give me a new one. I'm I'm learning that my social references are no longer cool or funny. They're just old. Right? So what's a new one? It's like good looking young people don't have problems. It's the one where they took off Marching Veronica. Oh, Riverdale. Riverdale. Sure. Riverdale. You know what I'm talking about, Matt. Right? Right. Like, if you want to do this, you've got to get with losers. So, if you don't see yourself quite like that yet, well, maybe you can. Okay. What questions, comments, observations, complaints, misunderstandings, offenses? Do we need to take care of right now? Stephen, can you talk more about the process? Yes. The grand mystery. Grand mystery. The grand mystery. Right. The process. The process is this thing that that's always existed. K. It has been, it will be. Think about it. I'll say it this way. I'll come back to it. I'm going to say it, I'll come back to it. You all know there's no resolution. Like, nothing ever resolves. Like everything every day is a new transition to a new thing. Right? Even the great creeds and liturgies, we say world without end. No end, no resolution. It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. And it was always going on and it is going on and it will be going on. That's the process. That's the big process. That's the great history. That's the great story. That's the great movement. That's the it. You know? And we get to move through it, and participate in it. We were. We came from somewhere to something. We're moving somewhere. We really are. So, the process is realizing there's no end. First. There's so much freedom in that. It's like, and it's like, what am I wasting my time for? Right? Well, how about I build this big thing if there's no end? You know, used to So this idea is there's eternal and immortal, and the old idea was immortal. Right? This whole Greek idea is that I would be remembered long after my death, and that's how I will survive. That's immortality. Our current iteration of his name's on buildings. So it's the old Greek ideal of of becoming immortal. Like, I will do something. I will conquer. I will reign. I will rule. I will make history in my name. So I'll be remembered for a long, long time to go. I will live beyond myself. K? It's real different than eternal. And eternal's like this great freedom. And like, there's this thing going on that I get to experience, but I don't get to control. And it has to follow a I think, and I think it follows a rhythm of life, death, new life, life, death, new life. Like it's this it's this thing. And we wanna live our lives linearly, like I do this proverbially. If I do this, this will happen. I'll get this. Like a formula. You know? And thank God that's not true because for all the bad things I've done, I do not wanna reap the rewards of that. All the stuff that's due me on that. No, I'll take a If I could just take the good side of leisure, that'd be great. But, we don't want that. We don't want the proverbial way. We want the freedom of the process. It's like, I can step into this thing and trust that this thing's happening for me if I step into it. You know, which is feel your feelings. And, it starts with step into yourself. Tell the truth about it. Make confession. Come into agreement with yourself. Confession means to be in agreement with. So fill your feelings, tell the truth, and trust God in the process. And, if you're an atheist, you've got to come to recognize life's bigger than you and it wins. That's spirituality. That there's something bigger than me, at play than me, and it's going to win. That's basic spirituality. So even atheist are spiritual. We have a lot in common with atheist. Denial being the primary one. So this process is risking, reaching, hoping, falling down, reaching back up, someone lifting us back up, and then doing it again the next day. So, tuck a boop, tuck a boop. But that's how we live. And we spend a third of our lives, if we're healthy, asleep. Who designed that? As proof that we're not made to accomplish anything. I think that's, I just, that's a huge insight I got a few years ago. A third of our lives, asleep, if we're doing it right, as proof that we're not here to accomplish anything. We're here to be, and to share, and to receive. There's no end. Like, why would I hold on to things? You need something? I got it. You have it. So I get afraid that I'm not gonna get that. I'll hold on to it. Whatever that is. Right? Goodwill, charity, money, love, time, interest, curiosity. The process is stepping out of control, out of self will into something that I can't help but be in because it's already happening. And letting go I think of it being on the riverbank. Like, Chip talks about the, euphoric river, like, life going. I think we spend a lot of our time clinging to tree roots on the river bank. Like, just if I just hold on right here and claw myself upstream, then I'll be okay. And so, letting go and letting the river rush us where it's gonna go, which is this giant expanse of an ocean that goes on and on and on. Resolution means to be loosened. It means to be set free. It's an old, old world word that goes back before 1500. It means to be set free. It means you're it is paid for and you are free. You're off the hook. K? And if you're off the hook means you're kinda crazy and you're going for it. You don't owe anybody anything. And and but you gotta do it from more than yourself. You gotta do it for something bigger than yourself. You gotta be involved in a purpose bigger than you for it to be sustainable. So think about your resolutions and think about how they're all about you to make yourself okay. And then maybe make some new ones. Sit around with some friends and drink cup of coffee and say, hey, what do we wanna do together this year that might change something? Like, what do you care about? And they say like, I'm kinda crazy about the harmonica. Like, I've been playing the harmonica every day by myself. And it's like, Nick, you play the harmonica? Like, Yeah. And then they're like, You know what I do? I weave pot holders. Really? Yeah. I got like a bunch of pot holders. I just can't stop making pot holders. Really? Yeah. We'll give you a number. What what can we do together? I don't know. Pot holders and harmonicas. I don't know. But you know what? I bet if we go for it, we'll figure it out. But if we sit back here and try to figure out how potholders and harmonicas go together, we'll never figure it out. But if you step into it, you'll figure it out. I promise those people will figure out, like, how those go together. Get get with some people and go, like, what are we doing together? What is this about? Like, this is what I care about. What do you care about? You kind of all throw it in and then you jump into it and then you have a band. Like a troop, a group. Circus clowns. Then you'll be somebody that no one remembers that's living fully. Thank you. Good night. Happy New Year. Thanks. Yeah.